THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 


GOVERNMENT 

OR 

HUMAN    EVOLUTION 

Individualism  and  Collectivism 


GOVERNMENT 

OR 

HUMAN  EVOLUTION 


tit        •5;? 


INDIVIDUALISM  AND  COLLECTIVISM 


BY 

EDMOND   KELLY,  M.A,  F.G.S. 

LATE  LKCTUKEB  ON  MUNICIPAL  GOVERNMENT  AT   COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

IN  THE  CITT  OF  NEW  YORK 

AUTHOR    OF    "EVOLUTION    AND    EFFORT" 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND     CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 

NEW   YORK   AND    BOMBAY 

1901 


Copyright,  1901, 
Bt  Edmond  Kellt 


All  rights  reserved 


^Unibrrsitg  iDrtss 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridok,  U.S.A. 


5^ 


PREFACE     ^ 

Ik  attempting  to  apply  to  the  problem  of  Government 
the  definition  of  Justice  proposed  at  the  close  of  the 
first  volume,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  two 
theories,  known  imder  the  names  Individualism  and 
Collectivism  respectively.  In  this  volume  we  shall 
endeavour  to  define  these  theories  and  determine  their 
respective  use  and  consequence.  But  before  doing  so, 
there  is  a  double  meaning  to  the  word  "  collectivism  " 
which  it  is  important  very  carefully  to  distinguish  ;  for 
it  is  used  to  mean  not  only  the  method  by  which  justice 
may  be  promoted,  but  also  the  condition  of  society  in 
which  justice  might  be  ultimately  attained.  Now  with 
collectivism  in  the  latter  of  these  two  meanings  this 
work  has  comparatively  little  to  do ;  for  it  has  already 
been  explained  that  we  have  no  reason  for  believing 
that  justice  ever  will  be  attained  in  the  perfection  pro- 
posed by  the  ideal  collectivist  State.  Our  definition  of 
justice  describes  it  as  the  "  effort  to  eliminate  from  our 
social  conditions  the  effects  of  the  inequalities  of  nature 
upon  the  happiness  and  advancement  of  man,"  and  it 
has  been  explained  that  there  are  certain  inequalities  of 
nature  the  effects  of  which  no  political  scheme  can  ever 
eliminate.^  If,  therefore,  an  examination  into  the  na- 
ture of  justice  has  led  to  the  conclusion  that  justice 
can  never  be  perfectly  attained,  it  is  clearly  not  incum- 

^  Vol.  i.  book  iii.  chap.  iii.  sec.  10,  p.  307.  The  previous  volume, 
entitled  "Government  or  Human  Evolution*  Justice,"  will  be  quoted 
herein  as  vol.  i. 


VI  PREFACE 

bent  upon  us  to  present  a  political  scheme  that  under- 
takes to  attain  it.  Collectivism,  then,  as  an  ideally 
perfect  state  of  society,  forms  no  essential  part  of  the 
collectivist  programme  studied  in  this  volume.  It  is 
true  that  the  challenge  thrown  down  by  individualists 
to  show  how  collectivism  can  ever  result  in  permanent 
improvement  has  in  part  been  taken  up  ;  that  is  to  say, 
an  effort  has  been  made  to  show  that  a  slow  adoption  of 
collectivist  methods  can  be  reasonably  expected  to  put 
an  end  to  the  economic  causes  of  poverty,  prostitution, 
and  crime.  And  in  the  explanation  of  what  collectiv- 
ism is,  it  has  been  necessary  to  explain  the  ideal  collec- 
tivist State  in  the  practicability  of  which  some  believe. 
But  the  demonstration  of  the  practicability  of  ideal 
collectivism  has  not  been  attempted. 

Upon  this  point  it  is  impossible  to  be  too  emphatic. 
Many  people  regard  collectivism  as  an  unattainable 
Utopia  with  which  practical  men  have  nothing  to  do. 
So  far  from  being  Utopian  and  unpractical,  collectivism 
has  within  certain  limits  already  become  an  accom- 
plished fact  in  the  best-governed  cities  in  the  world,  and 
is  rapidly  becoming  the  programme  of  the  rest.  In 
other  words,  by  collectivism  is  not  meant  the  paradise 
of  angels  described  in  "Looking  Backward,"  but  the 
theory  of  government  which  has  partially  been  adopted 
in  almost  all  the  civilised  countries  of  the  world.  There 
are  pernicious  extremes  of  both  individualism  and  col- 
lectivism. Few  political  students  any  longer  entertain 
the  opinions  of  Herbert  Spencer  as  regards  the  one, 
and  still  fewer  those  of  the  author  of  "  Looking  Back- 
ward," as  regards  the  other.  Nevertheless,  there  remain 
afloat  in  the  minds  of  men  some  of  the  errors  that  re- 
sult from  Spencerian  philosophy,  and  some  of  the  hopes 
inspired  by  the  romances  of  Edward  Bellamy.  It 
becomes,  then,    the    duty  of   the   political    student   to 


PREFACE  Vil 

study  these  two  theories  free  from  the  pessimism  of 
one  school  or  the  optimism  of  the  other,  profiting  by 
the  light  science  has  thrown  on  evolution  to  escape 
from  the  law  of  necessity  in  which  determinism  sought 
to  hold  us  bound,  and  by  the  experience  which  some 
decades  of  quasi-collectivism  have  furnished  us  during 
the  closing  years  of  last  century.  It  is  perfectly  pos- 
sible to  believe  that  collectivism  offers  a  higher  ideal 
of  government  than  individualism,  without  for  that 
reason  believing  in  the  possibility  of  a  purely  collectiv- 
ist  State.  Collectivism  can  be  applied  in  small  doses 
as  well  as  large ;  it  can  come  by  imperceptible  steps  as 
well  as  by  revolutionary  cataclysms  ;  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  conservative  as  well  as  radical  collectivism. 

The  greatest  disadvantage  against  which  collectivism 
labours  is  the  extra.vagant  hopes  which  it  has  raised. 
So  extravagant  are  the}^  that  every  man  who  seems  to 
favour  collectivism  is  set  down  by  the  practical  element 
of  the  community  as  a  demagogue,  a  dreamer,  or  a  fool. 
Against  this  extravagance  on  the  part  of  both  collec- 
tivists  and  their  critics  too  earnest  a  protest  cannot  be 
made ;  and  to  make  the  protest  effectual  collectivism 
as  a  method  must  be  distinguished  from  collectivism  as 
an  end.  In  the  latter  capacity  it  is  open  to  the  criticism 
which  is  never  wanting  to  any  Utopian  scheme  ;  but  as 
a  method  it  is  more  practical  than  individualism,  if  by 
practical  is  meant  the  seeming  of  the  maximum  of  re- 
sult in  return  for  the  minimum  of  toil.  But  collectiv- 
ism, without  being  recommended  as  an  end,  is  more  than 
a  method :  it  can  become  a  creed ;  it  can  also  serve  as  a 
programme. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  man  to  be  alile  to  see  a  little 
way  into  the  future ;  but  it  is  the  privilege  of  no  man 
to  see  all  the  way  into  it.  With  collectivism  as  an  end, 
therefore,  —  as  a  Utopia,  —  this  book  has  little  to  do ;  but 


viu  PREFACE 

in  three  far  more  useful  aspects  collectivism  is  worthy 
of  our  attention :  for  in  economics  it  presents  a  method ; 
in  politics,  a  programme ;  and  in  religion,  a  creed. 

In  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  a  strong  bias  in 
favour  of  Individualism  was  admitted  to  have  influenced 
the  initial  study  of  the  subject.  Under  the  stimulus  of 
this  bias,  the  Social  Reform  Club  was  organised  in  New 
York  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  into  social  contact  men 
who  worked  with  their  hands  and  men  who  worked  with 
their  heads,  and  of  rescuing  the  leaders  of  Trade  Unions 
from  what  then  seemed  to  be  the  manifest  errors  of  Col- 
lectivism. A  very  few  months  of  this  social  contact,  how- 
ever, persuaded  some  of  us  that  we  had  caught  a  Tartar. 
The  effort  to  escape  from  the  Tartar  involved  a  careful 
revision  of  the  scientific  grounds  of  Herbert  Spencer's 
Individualism  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  economic 
fallacies  of  socialism  on  the  other.  The  following  pages 
are  the  result  of  this  revision.  They  record  an  effort  to 
glean  the  truth  from  both  philosophies  ;  to  preserve  the 
care  for  the  individual  which  distinguishes  human  from 
pre-human  evolution  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  recover 
the  care  for  the  race  —  for  the  community  —  which  man 
in  departing  from  Nature  seems  unwisely  to  have  ne- 
glected. The  progress  of  man  is  not  likely  to  lie  in  the 
direction  of  either  one  extreme  or  the  other ;  by  leaning 
over  too  much  in  the  direction  of  Individualism  we  have 
moved  in  a  circle  rather  than  in  advance ;  were  we  now 
to  lean  too  much  on  the  side  of  Collectivism  we  should 
make  a  similar  mistake.  What  we  need  is  equilibrium, 
and,  as  Aristotle  told  us  many  years  ago,  the  essential 
of  all  virtue,  moderation. 

I  have  again  to  thank  the  same  friends  whose  kind- 
ness and  help  were  acknowledged  in  the  Preface  to  the 
fii-st  volume,  and  to  add  a  word  of  apology  for  the 


PREFACE  IX 

absence  of  both  bibliography  and  references,  of  wliich 
one  of  these  friends  has  very  justly  complained.  Circum- 
stances have  made  it  impossible  for  me  either  to  supple- 
ment or  confirm  the  references  in  my  original  manuscript. 
Inasmuch,  however,  as  I  have  dealt  for  the  most  part 
with  undisputed  facts,  the  absence  of  references  will 
not  much  be  felt ;  in  most  cases,  when  I  have  had  occa- 
sion to  refer  to  facts  that  are  unfamiliar  or  been  lately 
established,  I  have  inserted  a  reference.  I  wish,  how- 
ever, to  express  my  special  indebtedness  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Sidney  Webb  for  the  help  given  me  by  their  work  on 
Industrial  Democracy,  from  which  I  have  largely  drawn 
in  all  matters  connected  with  trade  unions,  and  without 
which  I  should  have  felt  greatly  at  a  loss  for  material 
upon  a  subject  concerning  which  there  were  so  few 
accessible  data  until  the  publication  of  their  book,  I 
also  feel  particularly  indebted  to  the  numerous  works  of 
Richard  T.  Ely  and  Carroll  D,  Wright,  as,  indeed,  to 
the  Labour  Bulletin  published  by  the  Labour  Bureau  of 
which  Mr.  Wright  is  the  Superintendent.  Since  this 
volume  has  been  written  my  attention  has  been  directed 
to  the  testimony  taken  before  the  Industrial  Commission 
in  1899,  and  I  have  added  an  Appendix  on  Trusts,  for 
most  of  the  material  of  which  I  am  indebted  to  Professor 
J.  W.  Jenks,  whose  book  on  this  subject,  and  whose 
contributions  as  Expert  of  the  Commission,  cannot  be 
too  highly  appreciated. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  I 
IND I VID  UAL  ISM 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 1 

§  1.  The  Definition  of  Justice 5 

§  2.  Justice  and  Government 7 

§  3.    Individualism  Described 10 

II.    INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY 16 

§  1.   The  Religious  Idea  —  Christianity  and  Mo- 
hammedanism      20 

{a)   The  Mohammedan  Idea 21 

(6)    The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Religion 23 

(c)  The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Disease 29 

(d)  The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Politics 32 

§  2.   The  Christian  Idea 38 

§  3.   Decay  of  the  Religious  Idea  and  Growth  of 

THE  Idea  of  Individualist  Government  .  60 
§  4.   Forces  at  Work  in  the  Development  of  the 

Idea  of  Individualist  Government     ...  65 

§  5.   The  Idea  of  Chivalry 75 

§  6.  Decay  op  the  Idea  of  Chivalry 82 

(a)  The  Code  of  Love 82 

(b)  The  Code  of  Honour 85 

m.    THE  INSTRUMENT  OE  INDIVIDUALISM  —  PRI- 
VATE  PROPERTY       

§  1.  The  Civilising  Force  of  Private  Property 

—  By  Promoting  Self-Control 89 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOS 

m.    THE  INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM  — PRI- 
VATE PROPERTY  (co7itmued) 
§  2.  The  Democratic  Force  of  Private  Property 

—  By  Overthrowing  Aristocracy  of  Birth  96 
§  3.  The  Socialising  Force  of  Private  Property 

—  By  Association  in  Guilds 102 

§  4.  The    Tyranny  of  Private    Property  —  The 

Market Ill 

§  5.   The   Industrial    Results    of  Private   Prop- 
erty —  Irregularity     of     Employment, 

Colonisation  and  War 124 

§  6.  The  Proletarian  Combination  against  Pri- 
vate Property  —  Trade  Unions  — Un- 
solved Problems  of  Trade  Unions     .  137 

(a)  Restriction  on  Trade 138 

(b)  Sweating 145 

(c)  The  Unemployed 148 

(d)  The  Limitations  of  Trade  Unions 148 

§  7.  The  Social  Results  of  Private  Property    .  152 

(a)  Poverty 154 

(b)  Militarism 157 

(c)  Corruption 160 

§  8.  Private  Property  and  the  Church  ....  170 

§  9.  Conclusion 173 

IV.     THE    RESULT    OF    INDIVIDUALISM  —  THE    SO- 
CALLED   SOCIAL   MIND 175 

§  1.  Social  Mind  in  the  Lower  Animals      .    .    .  179 

§  2.   The  Social  Mind  of  Man 184 

§  3.   Physiology  of  the  Mind 190 

V.     LIBERTY 203 

§  1.   Liberty  of  Contract 209 

§  2.   Analysis  of  Liberty 217 

§  3.  Property,  Right,  and  Duty 223 

§  4.  Economic  Liberty 227 

§  5.  Conclusion 237 


CONTENTS  xm 

BOOK   II 
COLLECTIVISM 

CHAPTEB  "«" 

INTRODUCTION 241 

I.     WHAT   IS   COLLECTIVISM? 250 

11.    THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM 273 

IIL    SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM 293 

§  1.  Pauperism  and  Crimk 294 

§  2.   Distribution  of  Work 298 

§  3.  Leisure  Secured  by  Collectivism      ....  303 
§  4.  Ignorance    the   Enemy  of  Collectivism  and 

Eliminated  by  It 305 

§  5.   Diversity  of  Work 320 

§  6.   Internal  Policy 324 

§  7.  External  Policy 328 

§  8.  Value,     Exchange     Value,    Currency,    and 

Foreign  Trade 330 

(a)    Internal  Industrial  Conditions 331 

(6)    External   Industrial    Conditions,    or  Foreign 

Trade 337 

IV.    OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED    . 

§  1.   That  It  Would  Promote  Over-Population    ,  339 

§  2.  That  It  Would  Be  Destructive  of  the  Home  341 

§  3.   That  It  Would  Be  Destructive  of  Liberty  348 

(a)  Economic  Liberty 348 

{b)    Political  LiheHy 351 

(c)    Personal  Liberty 352 

{d)  Summary  and  Conclusion 356 

§  4.  That  It  Would  Furnish  Insufficient  Stimu- 
lation    365 

§  5.  That  It  Would  Be  Artificial  or  Contrary 

to  Nature 371 

§  6.   That  It  Would  Be  Prejudicial  to  Art    .     .  374 

V.    PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM    .    .  383 

§  1.   Introductory 383 

§  2.  Preparedness  of    Different   Countries  for 

Collectivism 384 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOB 

V.     PRACTICAL  WORKING   OF  COLLECTIVISM    (con- 
tinue g?) 

§  3.   Theokies  of  Karl  Marx  and  the  Fabians    .  385 
§  4.  Hypothetical  Development  of  Collectivism 

IN  THE  United  States 387 

(a)  Present  Political  Conditions 387 

(6)    Extension  of  Municipal  Ownership  and  Ad- 
ministration      389 

(c)  Extension   of  National  Ownership   and   Ad- 

ministration          393 

(d)  Public  Stores 395 

(e)  Farm  Colonies,  Pauperism,  Prostitution,  and 

tjrime 399 

(/)  Advance  from  Partial  Collectivism  to  Collec- 
tivism Proper 401 

(g)   D^rmination  of  Exchange    Value  of  Com- 
modities Expressed  in  Dividend  Coupons   .  402 

{h)   Choice  of  Occupation 405 

{i) '  ^luntary  Labour  Cheques 410 

(j)  Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise    .  412 
{k)   Dividend    Coupons,    Labour    Cheques,     and 

Currency 416 

(I)    EliMination  of  Corruption   by  Substitution  of 
Labour  Cheques  for  Coin  as  Medium  of  Ex- 

»^      ,*change 419 

(m)  Land 420 

(n)  D(kaiestic  Service 424 

§  5.    Summar/ 427 

§  6.  The  Ideal  Collectivist  State 429 

VL    SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION 433 

§  1.   Rational  View  of  Collectivism 449 

§  2.  Practical  View  of  Collectivism 452 

§  3.  Moral  View  of  Collectivism 461 

(a)  Faith 466 

(b)  Morality  of  Compensation 475 

(c)  Morality  of  Collectivism 482 

{d)  Morality  and  Religion 494 

§  4.  Political  View  of  Collectivism 505 

§  5.   Conclusion 527 


CONTENTS  XV 

APPENDIX 
TRUSTS 

PAGE 

I.    OVER-PRODUCTION 536 

II.    ECONOMY 543 

1.  Economies  in  Production 544 

(a)  Economy  Occasioned  by  Working  Factories  at 

Maximum  Efficiency 544 

(6)  Economy  of  Time  in  Manufacturing  Only  One 

Dimension 545 

2.  Economy  of  Distribution 545 

(a)    Cross-Freights 545 

(6)  "  Getting  the  Market "       546 

3.  Prices 547 

m.     SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION 553 


INDEX 561 


INDIVIDUALISM 

AND 

COLLECTIVISM 


BOOK  I.    INDIVIDUALISM 
CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER 

EuEOPE  is  moving  towards  collectivism  with  a  rapidity 
of  which  she  is  herself  hardly  conscious.  The  eager- 
ness of  some  cities  in  England  to  extend  the  scope  of 
municipal  enterprise  has  in  some  cases  resulted  in 
extravagance  and  discontent.  And,  like  yachts  which 
capsize  and  lose  a  race  in  which  they  already  lead,  by 
injudiciousness  in  spreading  more  sail  than  they  can 
carry,  some  cities  are  already  being  pointed  to  as  a 
warninsf. 

America,  on  the  contrary,  is  far  behind  Europe  in 
municipal  collectivism ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
seems  to  be  ahead  of  Europe  in  industrial  and  com- 
mercial preparedness  for  it.  For  intelligence  in  the 
United  States  tends  to  turn  away  from  the  doubtful 
prizes  offered  in  the  political  arena  in  order  to  seek  the 
more  substantial  rewards  furnished  by  business  careers ; 
and  consequently  the  wasteful  method  of  competition  is 

being  abandoned  by  our  shrewdest  business  men  through 

1 


2  INDIVIDUALISM 

large  combinations  of  allied  industries  known  under  the 
name  of  Trusts. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  Europe  is  politically  better 
prepared  for  collectivism  than  the  United  States,  but 
that  commercially  the  United  States  is  riper  for  col- 
lectivism than  Europe. 

Europe  is  probably  in  the  more  wholesome  condition 
of  the  two ;  for  the  obstacle  to  municipal  ownership  in 
the  United  States  is  bad  government ;  and  the  combina- 
tion of  allied  industries  into  powerful  trusts  introduces 
a  new  motive  for  corruption  in  politics  which  tends  to 
make  bad  government  worse.  Now  one  of  the  greatest 
objections  not  only  to  municipal  ownership,  but  to  all 
extension  of  the  powers  of  the  State,  is  that  government 
tends  to  be  bad,  and  that  the  more  government  is  given 
to  do,  the  worse  it  tends  to  become.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  present  commercial  system, 
which  leaves  the  production  of  the  necessaries  of  life  to 
individual  effort,  and  thereby  sets  the  effort  of  one  group 
to  compete  with  that  of  other  groups,  is  merciless  and 
wasteful,  the  question  arises  whether  in  the  first  place 
competition  can  be  eliminated  from  production  or  to  any 
extent  reduced  ;  and  in  the  second  place,  whether  this 
elimination  can  best  be  midertaken  politically  by  the 
State,  as  in  Europe,  or  commercially  by  trusts,  as  in  the 
United  States. 

These  two  questions  are  believed  to  be  the  most 
burning  questions  of  the  day,  because  upon  the  solution 
of  them  will  be  seen  to  depend  the  issue  whether  we  are 
to  continue  subject  to  political  corruption  ;  whether  we 
are  to  continue  to  tolerate  pauperism,  prostitution,  and 
crime  ;  whether  we  are  to  continue  to  preach  the  gospel 
and  practise  hypocrisy ;  whether,  in  fine,  we  are  to  move 
towards  a  high  standard  of  morality  and  justice,  under 
the  deliberate  guidance  of  wisdom  and  conscience,  with 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER  3 

the  greatest  speed  consistent  with  safety  and  with  least 
cost  of  human  despair,  or  whether  we  are  to  stagger 
towards  it  under  the  blind  and  conflicting  impulse  of 
selfishness  and  fear  and  at  the  price  of  agony  levied 
during  interminable  centuries  by  the  process  of  natural 
evolution  which  some  of  our  teachers  devoutly  present 
to  us  as  the  only  path  of  human  salvation. 

The  importance  of  this  issue  has  led  to  the  examina- 
tion of  the  foundations  of  individualist  philosophy  in  a 
previous  volume  which  closed  with  a  definition  of  jus- 
tice. The  present  volume  attempts  to  apply  the  scien- 
tific conclusions  and  political  definitions  there  arrived 
at  to  the  practical  problems  of  the  day,  and  in  so  doing 
to  weigh  against  one  another  the  respective  theories  of 
government  known  under  the  name  of  Individualism 
and  Collectivism,  respectively. 

Before  entering  upon  this  study  it  may  be  well  to 
state  briefly  what  is  understood  by  these  two  terms. 

In  the  first  place,  they  are  both  essentially  economic. 
Many  of  our  social  problems  seem  insoluble  because 
they  are  regarded  as  social,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  are  economic.  Prostitution  may  be  cited  as  an 
example.^  Less  conspicuously  but  none  the  less  essen- 
tially is  this  true  of  pauperism  and  for  the  most  part  of 
crime.  From  economic  conditions  result  political  and 
social  consequences  of  stupendous  import  to  human 
happiness.  But  the  effect  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  cause.  Individualism  and  collectivism  will  be 
contrasted  in  this  volume  primarily  as  rival  economic 
theories  ;  that  is  to  say,  rival  theories  as  to  the  best  way 
of  producing  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life,  and  in 
these  words  are  included  all  those  things  necessary  to 
a  high  standard  of  refinement  and  happiness.  But 
although  individualism  and   collectivism  are    in  their 

^  Book  ii.  chap.  iv.  §  2. 


4  INDIVIDUALISM 

nature  economic,  they  are  essentially  political  also ;  for 
tliey  involve  the  question  whether  production  and  dis- 
tribution are  to  be  left  as  they  are  to-day,  for  the  most 
part  in  the  hands  of  individual  enterprise,  or  whether 
they  are  to  be  to  any  extent  undertaken  by  the  State. 
From  this  point  of  view  individualism  and  collectivism 
become  rival  theories  of  government,  and  as  such  come 
within  the  scope  of  the  inquiry  entered  upon  in  the 
preceding  volume. 

In  the  second  place,  collectivism  and  individualism 
are  not  regarded  as  at  present  inconsistent  with  one 
another.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  believed  that  for  many 
generations  man  will  have  alternately  to  adopt  now  one, 
now  the  other  theory ;  for  in  pushing  forward  the  one 
he  will  fall  into  the  evils  that  now  beset  some  of  the 
English  municipalities  above  referred  to,  and  will  have 
to  fall  back  upon  the  other  until  these  evils  are  slowly 
festered  out. 

These  preliminaries  having  been  laid  down,  we  may 
now  venture  upon  definitions. 

Individualism  is  the  theory  that  the  production,  trans- 
portation, and  distribution  of  the  necessaries  of  life  can 
best  be  left  to  individual  enterprise  stimulated  by 
self-interest  and  competition,  under  the  protection  and 
subject  to  the  control  of  the  State. 

Collectivism  is  the  theory  that  the  production,  trans- 
portation, and  distribution  of  the  necessaries  of  life  can 
to  a  certain  degree  to-day,  slowly  to  a  larger  degree, 
and  perhaps  eventually  altogether,  be  best  undertaken 
by  the  collective  action  of  the  city  or  State,  through 
the  substitution  of  co-operation  for  competition  and 
social  for  self  interest. 

The  fact  that  paujoerisra,  prostitution,  and  crime  are 
the  necessary  attendants  and  products  of  individualism 
is  a  sufficient  reason  for  questioning  its  claims ;  and  the 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  5 

arguments  presented  by  collectivism  for  believing  that 
it  furnishes  the  only  way  for  diminishing  these  horrors 
and  ultimately  perhaps  in  great  part  eliminating  them, 
furnish  a  motive  not  only  for  studying  collectivism,  but 
also,  if  the  study  justifies  it,  for  straining  every  nerve  to 
see  that  the  proper  steps  be  taken  in  the  direction  to 
which  it  points,  with  audacity  enough  to  face  the  diffi- 
culties that  can  be  surmounted,  and,  above  all,  with 
patience  enough  to  mark  time  at  those  crises  when  fur- 
ther progress  is  impossible,  remembering  that  "  they  also 
serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 

§  1.   The  Definition  of  Justice 

The  task  of  justice  was  defined  at  the  close  of  the  first 
volume  as  "the  effort  to  eliminate  from  our  social  con- 
ditions the  effects  of  the  inequalities  of  nature  upon  the 
happiness  and  advancement  of  man,  and  particularly  to 
create  an  artificial  environment  which  shall  serve  the 
individual  as  well  as  the  race,  and  tend  to  perpetuate 
noble  types  rather  than  those  which  are  base."  ^ 

The  obvious  objection  to  this  definition  is  that  it  is 
not  new.  This  criticism  was  anticipated  in  the  intro- 
ductory chapter,^  but  has  nevertheless  been  much  in- 
sisted upon  by  some  of  the  reviewers  of  the  first 
volume.  It  may  be  useful,  therefore,  to  point  out  at 
once  that,  however  trite  and  innocuous  the  definition 
may  seem,  it  is  equivalent  to  a  repudiation  of  Spence- 
rian  philosophy  in  so  far  as  this  philosophy  seeks  to 
apply  the  Spencerian  notion  of  human  evolution  to 
problems  of  government.  For  whereas  Herbert  Spencer 
considers  justice  attained  only  on  the  condition  that  the 
man  who  deserves  much  shall  get  much,  and  the  man 
who  deserves  little  shall  get  little,  the  definition  pro- 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  360.  2  Vol.  i.  p.  11, 


INDIVIDUALISM 


'> 


posed  disregards  this  so-called  "  inequality  of  benefits, 
but  on  the  contrary  insists  on  the  elimination  from  our 
social  conditions  of  the  inequalities  of  nature  to  the 
utmost  possible,  and  on  the  elimination  of  the  effects  of 
these  inequalities  upon  the  happiness  and  advancement 
of  man.  In  a  word,  Herbert  Spencer  asks  that  the 
curse  of  inferiority  put  by  nature  upon  the  majority  of 
men  be  increased  by  the  administration  of  justice,  so 
that  the  majority  shall  not  only  suffer  by  the  inferiority 
imposed  by  nature,  but  that  it  shall  also  suffer  by  a 
further  inferiority  imposed  by  man ;  ^  whereas  the 
proposed  definition  asks  that  on  the  contrary  justice 
should  mitigate  the  consequences  of  natural  inferiority 
wherever  this  is  possible ;  and  the  extent  to  which  this 
is  possible  is  set  forth  in  the  words  which  follow ;  that 
is  to  say,  the  task  of  justice  is  to  eliminate  the  effects 
of  inequalities  of  nature  upon  the  happiness  and  ad- 
vancement of  man;  not  the  happiness  of  some  men,  but 
the  happiness  and  advancement  of  all  men.  Nor  is  the 
individual  forgotten  in  the  proposed  definition.  On  the 
contrary,  the  task  of  justice  is  further  described  as 
the  creation  of  an  artificial  environment  which  shall  serve 
the  individual  as  well  as  the  race,  and  tend  to  perpetu> 
ate  noble  types  rather  than  those  which  are  base. 

This  definition  then  proposes  two  notable  departures 
from  nature  and  one  possible  departure  from  existing 
conditions  ;  that  is  to  say,  instead  of  conforming  to  the 
scheme  of  nature  which  on  the  one  hand  favours  the 
gifted  and  disfavours  the  ungifted,  and  on  the  other 
hand  sacrifices  the  individual  to  the  race,  the  proposed 
definition  asks  that  the  individual  be  no  longer  sacri- 
ficed to  the  race,  and  that  the  inequalities  of  nature  be 

*  It  has  beeu  elsewhere  explained  that  the  naturally  gifted  man  already 
enjoys  the  exercise  of  his  pifts.  Wealth  adds  to  this  enjoyment  the 
additional  luxuries  that  attend  it. 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  7 

eliminated  in  so  far  as  they  can  be  eliminated  consist- 
ently with  the  happiness  and  advancement  of  all.  And 
it  further  asks  that  an  effort  should  be  made  so  to 
readjust  social  conditions  that  they  may  tend  to  per- 
petuate noble  types  rather  than  those  which  are  base. 
It  may  here  be  added  for  the  benefit  of  a  few  other  re- 
viewers that  nothing  already  written  justifies  the  notion 
that  this  last  desideratum  is  to  be  obtained  by  treat- 
ing men  in  the  same  way  that  men  treat  stallions  and 
brood  mares,  but,  as  the  definition  carefully  states,  by 
creating  an  artificial  environment  the  tendency  of  which 
upon  the  race  will  be  to  eliminate  low  and  set  up  high 
moral  standards,  so  that  marriage  may  become  a  sacra- 
ment rather  than  a  surrender,  and  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave  men  and  women  may  be  actuated  by  relatively 
unselfish  rather  than  by  primarily  selfish  motives. 

All  these  things  have  been  fully  explained  in  the 
preceding  volume,  and  the  conclusion  arrived  at  will 
be  briefly  summarized  in  a  subsequent  chapter.^  They 
will  not,  therefore,  be  further  developed  here. 

Having,  therefore,  shown  the  difference  between  the 
proposed  definition  of  the  task  of  justice  with  which 
the  first  volume  closed,  and  that  adopted  by  Herbert 
Spencer,  let  us  now  consider  summarily  the  relation 
which  this  definition  bears  to  government  and  to  the 
conflicting  theories  regarding  government  known  under 
the  names  Individualism  and  Collectivism  respectively. 

§  2.   Justice  and  Government 

The  task  of  justice,  under  our  proposed  definition, 
aims  at  securing  the  happiness  and  advancement  of 
man  hy  the  creation  of  an  artificial  environment.  Now 
government  is  the  name  given  to  the  artificial  environ- 

1  Book  ii.  chap.  vi. 


8  INDIVIDUALISM 

merit  created  by  man  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  task 
of  justice.     It  may  be  objected  that  the  word   "gov- 
ernment "  applies  strictly  to  the  political  element  in  this 
environment  and  not  to  the  social  and  economic  ele- 
ments therein.     But  inasmuch  as  our  social  and  eco- 
nomic conditions  are  in  part  the  result  of  our  laws,  and 
are  protected  by  them,  and  inasmuch  as  our  laws  are 
essentially  within  the  province  of  government,  it  seems 
permissible  to  use  the  word  "government"  to  cover  the 
whole  field  of  human  interference  with  nature,  so  far  as 
the  task  of  justice  is  concerned.     We  must,  however, 
carefully  keep  in  mind  that  this  human  interference  is 
exerted  in  three  very  different  arenas :  the  political,  the 
social,  and  the  economic ;  and  that  it  is  sometimes  as 
much  engaged  in  defeating  legislation  as  in  enacting 
it.     For  outside  of   the  field  of   legislation   there   are 
constantly  at  work  the  force  of  reaction,  the  force  of 
sympathy,  and  the  force  of  discontent ;  and  these  forces, 
when  they  find  themselves  united  in  opposition  to  exist- 
ing laws,  nullify  these  laws,  either  by  paralysing  the 
enforcement  of  them  or  by  dictating  new  laws  even  to 
unwilling   legislatures.     We   must  also   keep  in  mind 
that  government  may  not  always  be  engaged  in  increas- 
ing human  interference  with  nature  ;  it  may,  on  the 
contrary,  be  usefully  occupied  in  decreasing  it,  as,  for 
example,  Avhen  Louis  XVI.  a])olished  the  higlily  artificial 
conditions  created  by  guilds  in  France  and  restored  the 
liberty  of  contract  which  approached  more  nearly  to  the 
scheme  of  nature.     It  is  important,  then,  more  carefully 
to  define  the  word  "government"  in  two  directions: 
government  constitutes,  it  is  true,  the  artificial  environ- 
ment created  by  man  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  task  of 
justice,  but  it  does  not  include  that  part  of  the  artificial 
environment  which  grows  up  by  the  side  of  our  deliber- 
ate legislative  enactments,  nor  does  it  necessarily  in  its 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER  9 

development  —  as  the  definition  might  seem  to  suggest 
—  become  more  and  more  artificial,  but  may  —  and 
certainly  at  times  doubtless  should  —  become  less  and 
less  so. 

Government  would  seem,  then,  in  view  of  the  fore- 
going limitations,  to  constitute  that  part  of  the  artificial 
environment  created  by  man  to  promote  justice,  which 
is  expressed  in  our  laws  or  in  social  and  economic  insti- 
tutions protected  by  our  laws.  As  such,  it  constitutes 
altogether  the  larger  part  of  this  artificial  environment, 
and  fails  to  include  only  that  part  which  is  in  process 
of  modification  or  actively  engaged  therein ;  as,  for 
example,  the  institution  of  Free  Masonry,  believed  by 
many  to  be  a  powerful  factor  in  determining  to-day 
the  political  fortunes  of  France,  or  the  civil  service 
reform  and  ballot  reform  associations  so  instrumental 
in  improving  our  own  political  conditions  in  America. 

The  foregoing  expresses  approximately  the  physio- 
logical view  of  government.^  Morphologically,  gov- 
ernment is  the  machinery  through  which  the  rules  of 
the  political,  social,  and  economic  life  of  a  people  are 
determined  and  made  known.  And  here  again  govern- 
ment does  not  and  cannot  include  all  these  rules ;  for 
example,  it  does  not  include  the  rules  of  the  Stock 
Exchange,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  these  rules 
determine  the  conditions  under  which  an  enormous 
amount  of  wealth  is  daily  transferred.  In  every  com- 
munity possessing  the  vitality  and  intelligence  necessary 
to  constitute  a  civilized  State  there  will  always  be  grow- 
ing up,  by  the  side  of  the  rules  enacted  and  enforced  by 
the  government,  other  rules  acknowledged  and  enforced 
by  public  opinion,  —  sometimes  through  a  self-constituted 
body  like  the  Stock  Exchange,  sometimes  through  the 
slow   growth   of   custom.     When   these   rules    become 

1  See  vol.  i.  p.  53. 


10  INDIVIDUALISM 

adopted  by  the  government,  as,  for  example,  the  common 
law  of  England  and  of  most  of  our  United  States,  they 
become  a  part  of  the  government.  Until  they  become 
so  adopted  they  remain  outside  of  government,  though 
as  regards  which  of  these  rules  are  and  which  are  not 
a  part  of  government  it  may  often  be  difficult  to  decide. 
It  is  of  great  importance  to  distinguish  between  the 
human  interference  that  comes  within  the  definition  of 
government  from  that  which  does  not  come  within  the 
definition,  because  upon  this  distinction  rests  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  the  difference  of  opinion  wliich  divides 
individualism  from  collectivism,  and  it  is  the  rival 
claims  of  these  two  theories  of  government  that  this 
volume  proposes  to  study.  At  the  close  of  the  first 
volume  it  was  stated  that  individualism  proceeds  upon 
the  assumption  that  egotism  is  the  only  motive  which 
can  be  depended  upon  to  keep  man  in  the  way  of  ad- 
vancement. Now  that  we  are  to  study  individualism 
a  little  more  closely,  our  first  task  must  be  to  point  out 
the  grounds  of  this  assumption,  and  when  these  grounds 
are  explained  it  m;iy  turn  out  that  the  assumption  itself 
is  not  as  immoral  as  it  at  first  sight  appears.  To  this 
end  let  us  consider  briefly  what  the  theory  of  individ- 
ualism is  and  upon  what  arguments  it  is  founded. 

§  3.   Individualism  Described 

Indiviihialism  rests  its  foundations  in  natural  science, 
and  particularly  that  part  of  it  known  under  the  name 
of  Evolution.  The  scheme  of  nature  —  the  scheme 
through  which  the  protozoon  lias  developed  into  man 
—  permits  the  survival  of  only  those  individuals  best 
fitted  to  survive.  In  the  earliest  forms  of  lifi'  the  pro- 
cess of  improvement  is  in  no  way  accelerated  or  re- 
tarded by    the   individual   itself ;    but  as    development 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  11 

advances,  individuals  seem  to  contribute  more  and  more 
to  their  own  survival,  so  that  when  we  reach  man  we 
find  in  him  a  conscious  effort  to  improve  his  own  condi- 
tions, and  as  between  men  we  observe  great  differences  of 
capacity  and  disposition  for  such  improvement.  Some 
savage  races  seem  to  have  little  capacity  or  disposition 
for  it;  other  races,  such  as  the  Chinese,  seem  to  have 
capacity,  but  little  disposition  ;  others,  on  the  contrary, 
have  both  capacity  and  disposition  developed  to  a  re- 
markable degree  ;  and  in  these  last  it  is  notably  the  genius 
of  a  few  individuals  sustained  by  the  capacity  and  dispo- 
sition of  the  rest  that  makes  the  largest  strides  toward 
improvement.  Now  it  seems  obvious  that,  ceteris  paribus^ 
the  best  government  will  be  that  which  furnishes  to 
gifted  individuals  the  fullest  liberty  of  action  through 
which  to  benefit  the  race.  Every  limitation  imposed  by 
government  upon  individual  action  will  from  this  point 
of  view  be  destructive  of  the  common  good  ;  and  from 
this  point  of  view,  therefore,  we  find  individualism  — 
that  is,  the  promotion  of  the  public  good  by  the  greatest 
liberty  of  individual  action  —  supported  both  by  the 
law  of  evolution  and  by  the  highest  principles  of 
statesmanship. 

This  point  of  view  gives  rise  to  several  political  doc- 
trines :  for  example,  it  dwells  upon  the  organic  character 
of  human  society;  upon  its  slow  natural  development 
as  opposed  to  the  effort  to  hurry  its  development  by 
human  interference ;  it  points  out  that  jurists  have 
always  recognised  the  superiority  of  the  law  of  nature 
over  the  law  of  man,  so  that  natural  law  became 
identical  with  moral  or  ideal  law,  and  that  as  such  it 
was  contrasted  with  the  bungling  and  unjust  laws 
enacted  by  man  ;  hence  has  grown  up  the  notion  of  so- 
called  natural  rights,  which  are  defined  to  include  the 
most  precious  of  them  all,  as,  for  example,  the  right  to 


12  INDIVIDUALISM 

life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  in  de- 
fence of  these  so-called  natural  rights  it  demands  that 
government  be  the  least  possible ;  that  is  to  say,  that  it 
be  confined  to  defence  from  the  foe  abroad  and  to  pres- 
ervation of  order  at  home. 

Individualism,  too,  is  founded  upon  moral  considera- 
tions of  the  highest  importance.  Morality  has  devel- 
oped through  the  natural  evolution  of  sympathy,  — 
from  sexual  love  to  parental  love,  from  parental  love  to 
tribal  affection,  from  tribal  affection  to  love  of  country 
or  patriotism,  —  and  love  of  country  or  patriotism  is 
destined  ultimately  to  extend  beyond  national  boun- 
daries until  we  are  at  last  all  united  in  a  common 
brotherhood.  Let  nature  then  take  its  course,  says  the 
individualist ;  keep  to  nature  to  the  utmost  possible ; 
though  man  can  do  but  little,  let  him  be  content  to  do 
that  little,  and  not  by  ill-judged  interference  with 
nature  retard  development  rather  than  promote  it. 

In  the  more  special  problems  of  government  the 
individualist  points  out  that  laws  enacted  to  improve 
human  conditions  have  continually  been  found  to  have 
the  opposite  effect;  that  by  the  side  of  institutional 
government  there  is  a  public  opinion  more  powerful 
than  it,  and  that  the  unwritten  law  is  often  more  ef- 
fectual than  the  written.  So  that  whether  we  build  up 
for  ourselves  a  complicated  fabric  of  government,  or 
whether  we  leave  government  to  organise  itself  upon 
simple  and  natural  lines,  we  must  always  fall  back  upon 
the  vitality  and  resource  of  individual  initiative,  which 
is  more  likely  to  be  crushed  by  governmental  interference 
than  promoted  by  it. 

Individualism  therefore  marshals  on  her  side  science, 
evolution,  nature,  morality,  and  statesmanship,  and 
presents  a  front  that  cannot  easily  be  assailed.  It  is 
only  by  attacking  the   theory  in  its   very  foundations 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  13 

that  its  conclusions  can  be  discredited,  and  this  is  the 
task  which  has  been  attempted  in  the  first  volume.  The 
effort  has  been  made  to  show  that  Nature  is  not  what 
individualists  represent  her  to  be;  that  the  law  of 
nature  is  not  a  moral  but  a  non-moral  law ;  that  there 
are  no  natural  rights  ;  that  the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  is  purely  an  invention  of  man  ; 
that  human  evolution  is  not  only  different  from  natural 
evolution,  but  in  great  part  diametrically  the  reverse  of 
it ;  that  society  is  a  construction  rather  than  an  organ- 
ism, and  human  interference  with  nature  has  been  bad 
only  when  it  has  been  unwise  or  insufficient ;  that  civil- 
isation has  advanced,  not  by  yielding  to  the  principle  of 
survival  of  the  fittest,  but  by  resisting  it,  and,  in  a 
word,  that  justice  is  the  highest  expression  of  human 
protest  against  it. 

At  this  point  the  first  volume  came  to  a  close.  In 
the  course  of  it  the  operation  of  human  evolution  as 
contrasted  with  natural  evolution  was  described  during 
the  periods  that  cast  most  light  upon  evolution  prior  to 
the  adoption  of  Christianity  by  Constantine.  We  shall 
now  resume  the  story  with  a  view  to  tracing  in  subse- 
quent history  the  tendency  of  individualism,  for  Christ 
was  the  great  adversary  of  individualism,  and  when  His 
teaching  was  eliminated  from  the  Church  by  its  unholy 
alliance  with  the  Roman  Empire,  the  rein  put  by  Him 
upon  selfishness  was  loosened,  and  individualism  once 
more  became  the  dominant  law  of  human  civilisation. 

Before,  however,  we  embark  upon  this  study,  a  word 
of  warning  and  explanation  must  be  said  :  individualism 
resembles  natural  evolution  —  of  which  it  is  the  theo- 
retical offspring  —  in  that  it  is  not  wholly  bad ;  indeed,  it 
is  so  much  the  reverse  of  bad  that  during  the  domin- 
ion of  individualism  humanity  has  obviously  advanced  ; 
men  and  women  are  to-day  believed  and  admitted  to  be 


14  INDIVIDUALISM 

better  in  mind,  body,  and  estate  than  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  issue  between  individualism  and 
collectivism  is  not  which  of  the  two  is  wholl}^  bad,  but 
which  of  the  two  is  the  better  ;  nay,  more,  which  of  the 
two  should  at  different  periods  of  human  development 
be  resorted  to.  In  other  words,  individualism  and 
collectivism  are  not  necessarily  destructive  of  one 
another.  On  the  contrary,  they  may  be  found  to  come 
in  aid  of  one  another.  In  the  first  volume  ^  the  chapter 
devoted  to  the  element  of  time  in  human  evolution 
pointed  out  that  living  organisms  cannot  be  subjected 
to  changes  of  environment  except  with  extreme  slow- 
ness and  with  occasional  periods  of  rest  and  even  re- 
action. Should  it,  therefore,  be  demonstrated  in  these 
pages  that  collectivism  presents  not  only  the  higher 
ideal  of  government,  but  also  to  a  limited  degree  an 
eventually  practical  one,  this  would  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily involve  the  conclusion  that  individualism  must 
for  that  reason  never  be  resorted  to.  On  the  contrary, 
a  contingency  will  be  shown  to  be  likely  to  happen 
under  which  a  return  to  individualism  would  furnish  a 
salutary  reaction.^ 

Again,  the  study  of  human  history  and  human  institu- 
tions upon  which  we  are  about  to  embark  would  become 
extended  beyond  legitimate  proportions  were  it  to  be 
interrupted  at  every  moment  by  an  intimate  exami- 
nation of  all  the  forces  at  work  in  the  field  tlirough 
an  over-scrupulous  desire  not  to  exaggerate  the  case. 
Suffice  it  to  say  now  tliat  the  tendency  of  evolution, 
even  under  the  individualist  regime,  seems  on  the  whole, 
in  spite  of  api)alling  obstacles,  to  be  generally  in  the 
direction  of  improvement;  the  method  of  natural  evo- 

1  Vol.  i.  \).  157.  Tlie  Element  of  Time  in  Natural  and  in  Human 
Evolution. 

'  Vol.  ii.  book  ii.  cliaji.  v.  §  4  (o). 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  15 

lution  is,  however,  a  dangerous  one  ;  it  is  extremely 
slow,  and  its  crises  are  attended  by  anguish  of  body  and 
of  mind.  If  we  look  back  at  the  history  of  humanity 
we  see  the  dangere  of  evolution  illustrated  by  the  decay 
of  the  civilisations  of  Assyria,  India,  Egypt,  Greece, 
and  Rome,  by  the  long  period  of  arrested  mental  devel- 
opment known  as  the  Dark  Ages,  and  by  the  bloodshed 
which  has  attended  and  is  still  attending  the  conflict 
of  opposite  social  ideas.  The  issue  presented  for  study 
in  this  volume  is  whether  individualism,  following 
closely  one  of  the  schemes  presented  by  nature  and 
attended  by  the  horrors  of  violence,  disease,  and  want,  is 
the  best  theory  of  human  government,  or  whether  there 
is  not  another  social  scheme  also  presented  by  nature 
which,  improved  by  man  under  the  name  of  collectivism, 
may  not  in  its  proper  turn  contribute  to  work  out  his 
emancipation  at  a  smaller  cost  of  agony  and  time. 


16  INDIVIDUALISM 


CHAPTER   II 

INDIVIDUALISM    IN    HISTORY 

It  is  customary  to  ascribe  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 
to  the  incursions  of  the  Gotlis ;  and  undoubtedly  it  was 
the  Goths  who  at  the  death  divided  the  Roman  Estate  ; 
but  to  attribute  the  death  to  them  would  be  like  argu- 
ing a  man's  children  to  be  his  murderers  because  they 
shared  his  inheritance. 

Rome  perished  because  the  forces  both  within  and 
without  which  had  contributed  to  her  maintenance  were 
no  longer  strong  enough  to  resist  the  forces  that  were 
hostile  to  it.  The  main  force  which  had  lifted  ancient 
Rome  above  all  the  other  cities  of  Latium  was  a  senti- 
ment, —  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  ;  and  this  sentiment 
in  ultimate  analysis  was  built  upon  a  kind  of  self-sacri- 
fice. So  long  as  there  remained  in  the  Empire  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  citizens  animated  by  the  willingness  to 
sacrifice  self  to  the  State  and  possessed  of  the  courage 
and  strength  to  make  this  sentiment  effectual,  so  loner 
there  was  a  force  which,  unless  it  encountered  the  same 
order  of  sentiment  more  pure  and  better  organised  tlian 
itself,  could  be  counted  on  to  triumph  over  external 
foes. 

But  when  this  sentiment  was  devoured  by  the  self- 
indulgence  that  follows  like  a  sliark  in  the  wake  of 
wealth,  the  fate  of  Rome  depended  no  longer  on  her- 
self, but  on  the  wheel  of  Fortune. 

And  it  must  be  admitted  tliat  for  centuries  Fortune 
was  very  kind  to  Ri;me  ;   it  is  impossible  to  read  her 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  17 

history  during  the  years  which  followed  the  reign  of 
Constantine  without  wondering  that  so  rotten  a  carcass 
could  so  long  hang  together. 

Rome  was  never  conquered.  There  was  during  the 
period  of  her  decay  no  organised  community  capable  of 
conquering  at  all.  She  was  never  conquered:  she  fell 
to  pieces  ;  and  a  "  concourse  of  most  politic  worms  " 
nibbled  away  her  once  so  shapely  limbs. 

We  must  look  at  the  barbarians  who  poured  over  the 
frontiers  of  the  Roman  Empire  during  the  fifth  and 
sixth  centuries,  not  as  the  conquerors  of  Rome,  but  as 
the  scavengers  which  rid  the  world  of  her  corruption. 
Man  had  by  his  very  refinements  sunk  so  low  that 
Nature  with  all  her  cruelty  and  barbarism  was  an 
improvement  upon  him ;  she  rendered  a  service  to  the 
race  by  using  the  savage  tribes  of  the  north  as  a  broom 
to  sweep  the  earth  of  a  nation  which  could  no  longer 
do  aught  but  corrupt  it. 

And  the  instruments  she  used  were  strangely  con- 
scious of  their  mission.  Attila  proclaimed  himself  the 
Scourge  of  God.  He  knew  that  he  could  but  destroy, 
and  that  he  was  powerless  to  construct. 

We  cannot   derive  much   advantage   from   pursuing 

the  devious  course  of  the  barbarians  who  at  this  time 

divided  the  inheritance  of  Rome,  unless  it  be  to  arrive 

at  a  realising  sense  of  what  is  in  store  for  man  when 

he  abandons  the  conduct  of  life  in  order  to  surrender 

himself  to  his  natural  propensities.     And  it  is  perhaps 

a  sad  and  instructive  lesson  to   compare  the  teaching 

of  the  wisest  and  best  of  Rome  with  the  consequences 

of  that  teaching:    "  Vivere  secundum  naturam,"  —  Live 

according    to    nature,  —  said   the   Stoic    Cato  ;    "  Live 

according   to   nature,"  echoed  the   Epicurean  Horace ; 

"  Live  according  to  nature,"  repeated  the  sage  Marcus 

Aurelius  ;    and  live  according   to   nature  with  a  ven- 

2 


18  INDIVIDUALISM 

geance  did  the  pleasure-sated  patrician  and  the  pleasure- 
seeking  populace.  In  very  truth  they  have  had  their 
reward.^ 

Nature  brings  to  the  sybarite  a  long  and  miserable 
decrepitude  ;  to  the  barbarian  a  violent  but  often  glori- 
ous death ;  and  whether  we  linger  by  the  decaying 
remains  of  the  one  or  are  carried  headlong  over  the 
battlefields  of  the  other,  we  can  but  record  the  inevi- 
table lesson  that  Nature  unsubdued  is  a  cruel  god- 
mother. The  history  of  man  living  according  to  Nature 
seems  a  bewildering  and  pointless  tragedy,  with  a  great 
deal  of  blood  and  misery  in  it  ;  the  hell  of  human  pas- 
sions let  loose  ;  whole  armies  destroyed  at  one  time  to 
serve  the  ambition  of  a  Clovis,  at  another  to  wreak  the 
hatred  of  a  Fredegonde.  But  out  of  it  all,  to  one  who 
seeks,  not  the  hand  that  wields  the  sword,  but  the  spirit 
that  in  the  end  overcomes  it,  there  loom  out  of  this  con- 
fusion two  great  centres  of  order,  —  one  in  the  papal 
chair  at  Rome ;  the  other  in  a  mosque  at  Mecca.  For 
the  battles  in  which  Clovis  overcame  Syagrius  at  Sois- 
sons,  the  Suabians  at  Zulpich,  and  Alaric  near  Poictiers 
would  have  shared  the  obscurity  of  the  countless  other 
unrecorded  battles  of  that  period  were  it  not  for  the 
alliance  which  Clovis  made  with  the  bishops  in  com- 
munion with  the  See  of  Rome. 

Christianity  may  have  lost  by  her  alliance  with  the 
Roman  State,  but  even  the  corruption  of  that  day  could 
not  take  from  the  Church  of  Christ  the  saving  seed  tliat 
still  germinated  and  bore  fruit  in  the  byways  and  hedges, 
far  from  the  pomp  and  jealousies  of  the  Papal  Court.  It 
is  difficult  to  believe  that  in  all  tlie  violence  and  horror 
of  this  period  there  was  much  room  for  the  humility  and 

1  It  ought  not  to  be  necessarj'  to  explain  that  it  is  not  tlie  doctrine  of 
the  Stoic  which  is  here  criticised,  but  the  false  formula  in  which  the  doc- 
trine was  expressed. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  19 

non-resistance  preached  to  the  fishermen  of  Galilee ;  and 
yet  throughout  it  all,  such  is  the  overwhelming  power 
of  a  moral  force  to  hold  its  own  against  mere  physical 
brutality,  that  when  we  look  for  a  clue  to  guide  us 
through  the  world-spread  and  tottering  ruins  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  we  find  it  in  religion,  —  whether  it  be  a 
true  religion  corrupted  by  the  State  at  Rome,  or  a  false 
religion  creating  a  state  by  the  Red  Sea.  During  the 
centuries  that  follow  we  shall  find  two  waves  of  civili- 
sation starting:  from  these  two  centuiies :  the  Christian 
with  a  high  ideal  of  morality,  but  degenerating  towards 
a  low  standard  of  intelligence,  strangely  at  variance  with 
the  violence  which,  by  compromise  after  compromise,  it 
was  at  last  destined  to  overcome  ;  the  Mohammedan  with 
a  low  ideal  of  moralit}',  but  sustained  by  a  high  standard 
of  intelligence,  presenting  two  definite  objects  for  the 
attainment  of  men,  —  conquest  in  this  world  and  a  para- 
dise of  houris  in  the  next.  If  we  compare  the  ignorant 
monk  of  mediaeval  Europe  with  the  wise  men  who 
thronged  the  court  of  Haroun  al  Raschid,  it  is  of  no 
small  interest  to  note  that  the  one  was  sowing  the  seed 
of  our  Western  Empires,  while  the  other  was  destined 
to  degenerate  into  the  unspeakable  Turk. 

To  those  who,  like  Niebuhr,  think  it  possible  to  write 
history  without  reference  to  religion,  it  may  seem  fanci- 
ful to  reduce  that  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  varying 
fortunes  of  two  religious  ideas ;  and  yet  it  is  impossible 
to  scan  the  centuries  wliich  separate  Constantine  from 
Cromwell  without  recognising  the  preponderating  r81e 
which  Mohammedanism  played  in  one  continent  and 
Christianity  in  the  other.  Indeed,  until  prosperity  had 
emasculated  the  Mussulman,  it  may  be  said  that  there 
were  very  few,  if  any,  events  in  the  civilised  world  which 
were  not  intimately  connected  with  one  of  these  two 
religions  or  with  the  conflict  between  them. 


20  INDIVIDUALISM 

§  1.   The  Religious  Idea.  —  Christianity  and 
Mohammedanism 

The  contrary  currents  which  traverse  an  estuary 
hopelessly  perplex  a  mariner  until  he  discovers  what 
gives  rise  to  them ;  but  the  moment  he  recognises  them 
all  to  result  from  the  flow  of  the  sea  up  tlie  river-bed 
during  one  tide  and  the  flow  of  the  river  to  the  sea  dur- 
ing the  other,  they  not  only  cease  to  perplex  him,  but 
he  can  count  upon  and  utilise  them.  It  is  probable 
that  similar  currents  can  be  traced  in  history,  though 
they  are  numerous  and  subtle.  We  cannot,  then,  do 
better  than  point  them  out  whenever  we  can  recognise 
them,  without  dogmatising  too  much  as  to  their  con- 
stancy or  as  to  their  strength. 

But  though  it  may  be  unwise  to  be  over-positive  as 
to  the  influence  of  religion  in  the  world,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  there  have  been  times  and  places  in  which 
the  power  of  a  religious  idea  has  proved  itself  to  be 
overwhelming.  Nor  is  it  necessary  that  the  idea  com- 
mend itself  to  us  to-day  for  its  wisdom  or  morality;  it  is 
not  likely  that  any  man  educated  in  our  western 
civilisation  would  approve  the  peculiar  tenets  of  Mos- 
lem faith;  and  yet,  as  a  force,  this  very  Moslem  faith 
has  never  been  surpassed;  and  in  its  origin  it  can 
hardly  be  distinguished  from  Christianity.  "  Do  unto 
another  as  thou  wouldst  he  should  do  unto  you,"  says 
the  Koran;  and  again:  "Deal  not  unjustly  with  others, 
and  ye  shall  not  be  dealt  with  unjustly.  If  there  be 
any  debtor  under  a  difliculty  of  paying  his  debt,  let 
his  creditor  wait  until  it  be  easy  for  him  to  do  it;  but 
if  he  remit  it  in  alms,  it  will  be  better  for  him;"  and 
again :  "  Take  not  advantage  of  the  necessities  of  another 
to  buy  things  at  a  sacrifice ;  rather  relieve  his  indigence." 
"  Look    not   scornfully   upon    thy  fellow-man ;    neither 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  21 

walk  the  earth  with  insolence,  for  God  loveth  not  the 
arrogant  and  vainglorious."  The  very  name  Islam 
means  submission.  All  the  essentials  of  Christianity 
are  here,  —  love  substituted  for  greed ;  humility  for 
arrogance. 

(a)   The  Mohammedan  Idea 

Notwithstanding  the  similarity  between  the  teaching 
of  Christ  and  that  of  Mohammed,  neither  Saint  Paul  nor 
his  successors  succeeded  in  making  an  impression  upon 
the  wandering  tribes  of  Arabia.  ^  It  would  have  been 
difficult  to  find  any  corner  of  the  earth  in  which  there 
was  less  promise  of  religious  regeneration  or  social  cohe- 
rence than  among  the  Bedouins,  to  whom  the  first  gos- 
pel of  Mohammed  was  preached.  Mohammed's  city 
was  Mecca;  and  here  the  Banii  Kinana  had  formed  a 
settlement  around  the  Ka'ba,  — the  sanctuary  of  a  num- 
ber of  loosely  confederated  tribes  (Ahabish)  belonging 
to  that  district.  What  prosperity  Mecca  enjoyed  was 
mostly  due  to  the  fact  that  here  was  held  the  yearly  fair 
at  which  the  Meccans  sold  to  the  Bedouins  the  goods 
they  imported  from  Syria.  It  enjoyed  no  municipal 
government,  no  magistracy,  but  was  composed  of  num- 
erous so-called  "septs,"  occupying  each  its  own  quarter, 
worshipping  each  its  own  gods,  and  united  only  by  a 
common  interest  in  observing  the  sacred  month,  during 
which  merchants  were  safe  from  the  brigandage  that 
prevailed  during  the  rest  of  the  year.  Here,  as  in 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  religion  was  in  one  of  its 
phases  an  anti-social  rather  than  a  social  force;  there 
was  indeed  behind  the  multiplicity  of  Arabian  gods  a 
shadowy   notion   of   Allah;    but   because    of   the   very 

1  Saint   Paul  himself   preached  the  gospel    in   Arabia.  —  Epistle  to 
GalatianSf  i.  17. 


22  INDIVIDUALISM 

unity  and  universality  of  Allah,  the  Arab  was  out  of 
touch  with  Him.  For  the  Arab  was  a  true  son  of 
Ishmael:  "He  will  be  a  wild  man;  his  hand  will  be 
against  every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against  him."  ^ 
In  the  language  of  modern  philosophy  he  was  an  indi- 
vidualist: he  wanted  a  camel  of  his  own;  a  God  of  his 
own ;  the  desert  to  range  in ;  and  an  occasional  caravan 
to  plunder.^ 

This  was  the  ground  in  which  the  seed  of  Christ's 
gospel  had  taken  no  root,  but  which  responded  with 
savage  enthusiasm  to  the  same  doctrine  when  it  was 
driven  home  by  the  personality  of  Mohammed. 

It  would  be  unwise  in  such  a  work  as  this  to  enter  at 
too  great  length  into  speculation  regarding  the  secret 
of  Mohammed's  success;  we  are  more  concerned  with 
the  fact  of  his  success  than  with  the  reason  of  it;  never- 
theless it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  suggest  that  men's 
hearts  are  very  much  like  men's  minds  in  the  dense 
carapace  of  dulness  that  envelops  them,  and  that  the 
personality  of  the  teacher  has  perhaps  more  to  do  with 
his  success  than  the  soundness  of  his  doctrine ;  the  word 
of  a  good  woman  will  often  reach  the  heart  of  a  criminal 
upon  whom  the  eloquence  of  a  Chrysostom  would  have 
been  wasted.  But  upon  one  point  we  must  not  allow 
ourselves  to  be  deceived ;  it  was  not  the  virtues  preached 
by  Mohammed  that  secured  him  the  allegiance  of  his 
Bedouin  disciples;  it  can  hardly  be  conceived  that 
Mohammed  was  enjoining  upon  them  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  humility  and  love  when  Ali,  in  offering  to 
become  his  vizier,  exclaimed:  "O  prophet,  I  am  the 
man;    whoever  rises  against  thee,  I  will  dash  out  his 

J  Genesis  xvi.  12. 

2  There  seems  in  this  respect  to  be  considerable  analogy  between  the 
Boer  and  the  Bedouin  ideal  of  government.  The  Boer  does  not  set  out  to 
plunder,  but  his  system  of  government  ends  in  something  very  like  it. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  23 

teeth,  tear  out  his  eyes,  break  his  legs,  rip  up  his  belly. 
O  prophet,  I  will  be  thy  vizier  over  them!  "^ 

And  yet  too  much  importance  must  not  be  attached  to 
the  mere  personality  of  Mohammed ;  just  as  in  carpentry 
every  effort  at  penetration  needs  a  sharp  tool  forward 
and  a  blunt  one  behind,  and  it  is  by  the  application  of 
the  hammer  to  the  tack  that  penetration  is  effected ;  so 
in  the  moral  and  intellectual  world  there  are  needed  two 
instruments  to  penetrate  the  crust  of  habit  within  which 
the  instinctive  life  of  man  is  lived ;  and  these  two  in- 
struments are,  first,  an  idea,  and,  secondly,  the  personal 
force  of  the  Prophet  to  drive  the  idea  home.  Now  the 
fundamental  idea  of  Mohammedanism  was  probably  not 
the  practice  of  virtue;  it  was  an  idea  that  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  highest  form  of  government,  and  for 
this  reason  demands  our  very  particular  attention. 

(5)    The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Bcligion 

Selfishness,  unenlightened  by  civilisation  or  corrupted 
by  it,  tends  to  distract  the  energies  of  an  individual 
rather  than  to  concentrate  them.  In  some  cases  it  may 
animate  a  temperament  peculiarly  gifted  with  the  power 
of  concentration  so  as  to  make  of  such  a  temperament  a 
social  scourge ;  it  accomplishes  this  work  in  such  a  life 
as  that  of  Bonaparte,  Jay  Gould,  or  William  Tweed; 
but  this  is  comparatively  rare ;  in  most  men  it  distracts 
and  dissipates  their  force,  so  as  to  make  them  incapable 
of  very  great  accomplishment.  This  dissipating  ten- 
dency of  selfishness  is  illustrated  in  the  man  who,  though 
vindictive  enough  to  wish  revenge,  is  too  cowardly  to 
attempt  it;  or  in  the  man  who  is  greedy  enough  for 
wealth  to  commit  crime  for  the  purpose  of  attaining 
it,  and  yet  not  rash  enough   to  take  the  risks  which 

1  Gibbon,  ix.  p.  284. 


24  INDIVIDUALISM 

crime  involves;  or  in  the  man  who  would  be  glad 
enough  to  surrender  to  the  allurements  of  another  man's 
wife,  and  is  yet  restrained  by  the  discomforts  which 
await  him  from  the  jealousy  of  his  own.  Now  it  is 
upon  this  distracting  tendency  of  human  selfishness  that 
our  political  and  social  institutions  in  great  part  rest. 
Selfish  men  stand  like  the  fabled  ass,  irresolute  and 
inactive  because  equally  distant  from  equally  attractive 
bunches  of  hay,  and,  through  the  paralysing  effect  of 
opposing  selfishnesses,  abstain  from  sin,  except  within 
limits  that  can  be  deemed  safe.  This  is  the  kind  of 
morality  which  practically  keeps  our  civilisation  to- 
gether. It  is,  of  course,  very  different  from  the  morality 
we  profess;  but  this  last  has  now  become  so  obsolete 
that  Mr.  Fitz- James  Stephen,^  in  a  book  written  for  the 
purpose  of  demonstrating  the  necessity  of  maintaining 
Christianity  as  the  bulwark  of  government,  laughs  at 
the  idea  of  attempting  to  conform  ourselves  to  the  pre- 
cepts taught  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  This  incon- 
sistency will  be  treated  at  greater  length  when  we  come 
to  study  our  existing  institutions.  For  the  present  it  is 
not  necessary  to  insist  on  more  than  this :  that  men  and 
women  who  are  not  animated  by  religious  motives  are 
for  the  most  part  kept  from  infractions  of  social  and 
other  law  either  by  affection  or  by  the  fear  of  conse- 
quences. 

Now  this  distracting  effect  of  selfishness,  although 
extremely  useful  as  a  socialising  force  in  creating  a 
state,  is  a  source  of  weakness  once  the  socialising  force 
has  created  it;  for  the  more  we  have  at  stake  in  our 
lives,  the  less  are  we  willing  to  expose  them.  Again  the 
habits  of  self-indulgence  wliich  result  from  prosperity 
increase  unwillingness  to  suffer  pain  and  hardship,  and 
this  unwillingness  unfits  men  to  face  the  dangers  of  war; 
1  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  25 

they  therefore  give  up  fighting  themselves  and  pay  others 
to  fight  for  them,  and  this  is  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

The  operation  of  selfishness  tends,  then,  inevitably 
to  the  decay  of  every  civilisation  that  is  built  upon 
it  alone. 

The  distraction  produced  by  selfishness  is  particularly 
dangerous  in  the  soldier ;  a  man  who  is  concerned  about 
his  safety  or  unwilling  to  suffer  pain  is  thereby  unfitted 
to  lead  a  charge,  or  to  stand  a  charge,  or  to  endure  any 
of  the  hardships  inseparable  from  a  campaign ;  whereas 
the  soldier  whose  every  fibre  is  animated  by  a  single 
purpose  unweakened  by  any  conflicting  consideration 
will  hurl  himself  upon  the  enemy  with  irresistible 
momentum  or  stand  to  receive  him  with  irresistible 
obstinacy. 

This  distraction  occasioned  by  selfishness  ^  is  inconsis- 
tent with  good  government  so  long  as  our  political  insti- 

^  It  ought  to  be  obvious  that  the  word  "selfishness  "  is  used  here  in  its 
popular  sense,  and  that  no  attempt  is  made  to  adopt  or  take  into  consid- 
eration the  philosophical  doctrine  that  all  human  motive  must  in  its  last 
analysis  be  selfish,  and  that  therefore  a  careful  and  correct  vocabulary  will 
distinguish  one  kind  of  selfishness  from  another  and  not  contrast  selfish- 
ness with  motives  which  are  not  philosophically  distinguishable  from  them. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  patriotism  is  a  form  of  selfishness  ;  but  it  is  a 
form  in  which  it  is  so  diluted  by  unselfishness  that  more  confusion  is 
likely  to  arise  in  non-philosophical  minds  by  the  attempt  to  be  accurate 
than  by  adopting  popular  though  slightly  incorrect  verbiage.  The  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  selfishness  which  is  concerned  with  one's  self 
only  and  that  in  which  considerations  of  self  yield  to  considerations  for 
one's  country  is  that  in  the  one  case  the  selfishness  is  of  a  distracting 
character,  and  in  the  other  case  it  is  not.  This  is  the  distinction  which  it 
is  here  sought  to  establish ;  and  it  can  be  established  for  the  unsophisti- 
cated reader  better  by  using  the  word  in  its  popular  sense  than  by  preced- 
ing the  argument  with  philosophical  disquisition,  which  in  a  treatise  on 
politics  it  is  wise  as  much  as  possible  to  avoid.  I  permit  myself  therefore 
to  use  the  word  selfishness  to  mean  selfishness  which  disregards  the 
interest  of  others  ;  and  unselfishness  to  mean  that  which  regards  them. 
So  many  people  have  an  unreasonable  objection  to  the  word  "altruism" 
that  it  hag  been  deemed  prudent  to  use  it  as  sparingly  as  possible. 


26  INDIVIDUALISM 

tutions  reward  those  willing  to  take  risks  of  political 
brigandage  by  surrounding  them,  where  successful,  with 
the  protection  of  the  law.  The  citizens  who  are  called 
law-abiding  because  they  are  timid  become  the  natural 
prey  of  those  who  because  they  are  not  timid  seize  the 
law-making  power  in  order  to  turn  it  against  the  law- 
abiders.  The  attempt  to  move  forward  civilisation  by 
relying  on  selfishness  is  like  the  attempt  to  move  for- 
ward on  a  treadmill;  the  wheel  sinks  under  us  every 
time  we  lean  upon  it;  we  remain  at  a  standstill,  losing 
strength  at  every  effort,  until  at  last  exhaustion  comes 
upon  us ;  we  fall  in  our  tracks,  only  to  leave  the  eternal 
mill  to  grind  the  lives  of  those  that  come  after  us  in 
recurring  despair. 

And  yet  this  is  not  a  true  picture  of  what  has  hap- 
pened in  the  history  of  man ;  because  man  has  not  at  all 
times  depended  upon  selfishness  as  a  sufficient  motive 
for  action.  That  selfishness  is  a  sufficient  motive  is  a 
modern  doctrine  of  political  economy  which  is  already 
yielding  to  less  inhuman  argument.  So  far  from  de- 
pending upon  selfishness,  it  may  be  said  that  no  nation 
ever  became  very  great  that  did  depend  upon  it.  When- 
ever we  see  one  tribe  sweeping  other  tribes  before  it,  we 
almost  always  find  behind  it  a  force  which,  because  it  is 
not  distracted  by  selfishness,  is  overwhelming. 

This  force  is  generally  an  idea  which  removes  from 
the  mind  the  considerations  which  distract  it,  concen- 
trating energy  instead  of  dissipating  it.  Such,  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  force  of  patriotism.  Patriotism  obliterates 
self;  it  is  not  an  effectual  patriotism  unless  it  does 
obliterate  self;  and  by  o])literating  self  it  obliterates  the 
distractions  which  result  from  self -consideration.  An- 
other such  force  is  love;  that  is  to  say,  the  love  that 
obliterates  self  and  not  that  which  is  servile  to  it.  An- 
other such  force  is  religion ;  that  is  to  say,  the  religion 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  27 

which  succeeds  in  lifting  the  hearts  of  men  above  things 
worldly  and  substitutes  for  them  things  spiritual. 

Religion,  however,  operates  upon  men  in  different 
methods ;  and  its  faculty  for  rousing  enthusiasm  depends 
much  upon  the  particular  method  it  adopts.  It  op- 
erates, for  example,  by  cold  appeal  to  reason,  as  in  the 
religion  of  Confucius ;  by  passionate  devotion  to  a  cause, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Crusades ;  by  substituting  the  love 
of  the  neighbour  for  the  love  of  one's  self,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  early  Christians ;  but  above  all,  and  perhaps  be- 
hind all,  by  the  conception  of  an  omnipotent  force  of 
which  each  and  every  one  of  us  is  the  manifestation  and 
eveiy  one  of  us  the  invincible  instrument,  as  in  the  creed 
of  Islam. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  inquiry  to  examine  every 
movement  that  has  succeeded,  and  trace  it  to  its  psy- 
chological source;  for  it  seems  possible  that  success 
in  almost  every  case  could  be  traced  to  self-efface- 
ment. For  example,  the  secret  of  successful  leadership 
seems  to  be  in  the  ability  of  a  leader  so  to  command  the 
loyalty  of  his  adherents  that  they  will  make  any  sacri- 
fice for  him ;  self  in  such  case  is  forgotten  in  devotion 
to  the  leader.  Again,  although  religion  is  behind  the 
training  which  goes  to  make  the  Sister  of  Charity,  there 
is  in  the  training  itself  a  carefully  devised  system  for 
destroying  self-consideration.  No  one  is  permanently 
admitted  to  the  sisterhood  who  has  not  during  a  period 
of  probation  shown  an  ability  to  efface  self,  and  during 
this  period  no  effort  is  spared  to  effect  this  purpose; 
pride  is  shattered  by  the  habit  of  servile  obedience ;  re- 
finement is  discouraged;  even  personal  cleanliness  is 
tabooed  in  order  that  no  bodily  consideration  should 
stand  between  the  soul  and  God.  ■  It  is  perhaps  the 
absence  of  this  somewhat  brutal  treatment  of  the  body 
that   explains  why  Episcopal  sisterhoods  keep   so   far 


28  INDIVIDUALISM 

behind  those  of  the  Roman  Church.  Rome  crushes 
self-consideration;  Protestantism  tends  rather  to  keep 
it  alive. 

This  discussion  must  not  be  understood  to  favour  one 
system  or  the  other ;  nor  need  it  be  regarded  as  written 
in  the  interest  of  religion:  "Je  n'oppose  rien,  je  ne 
propose  rien;  j'expose."  The  great  historical  fact 
looms  out  of  the  confusion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  so 
long  as  men  were  urged  only  by  selfish  motives  they 
destroyed  much  but  constructed  nothing ;  but  as  soon  as 
the  energies  which  were  distracted  by  selfishness  became 
concentrated  by  the  controlling  force  of  a  single  idea 
they  destroyed  less  and  constructed  more.  In  other 
words,  the  great  constructive  force  in  humanity  is  not 
selfishness,  but  unselfishness. 

Unselfishness,  however,  is  a  negative  word  and  serves 
only  to  strike  a  contrast ;  the  real  force  which  creates 
unselfishness  is  the  force  of  a  concentrating  idea.  This 
was  the  force  which  Mohammed  had  the  srenius  to  com- 
municate  to  the  sons  of  Ishmael.  Whether  we  regard 
it  as  a  religious  idea,  as,  for  example,  the  omnipotence 
of  Allah,  or  an  irreligious  idea,  as  that  of  fatalism,  or 
whether  we  attribute  it  to  personal  loyalty,  there  was 
accomplished  among  the  Bedouins  during  the  life  of 
Mohammed  a  change  of  heart  which  drew  together  the 
wandering  tribes  of  Arabia  as  a  magnet  does  a  field 
of  iron  filings,  and  converted  them  for  the  first  time  in 
their  history  into  one  invincible  host. 

It  hardly  seems  necessary  to  follow  closely  the  course 
of  the  army  which,  starting  from  Medina  and  effecting 
the  conquest  of  Mecca,  set  forth  upon  the  conversion  of 
the  world.  Almost  without  a  check  it  spread  over  the 
whole  Arabian  peninsula,  crossed  into  Egypt,  mastered 
the  whole  northern  coast  of  Africa,  and  established  the 
Moorish    Empire   in  Spain.     Eastward  and   northward 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  29 

its  progress  was  less  rapid  but  no  less  certain;  as  it 
came  into  contact  with  higher  civilisations  it  borrowed 
and  enhanced  the  splendour  of  every  conquered  race. 
Constantinople,  the  capital  of  the  world,  became  neces- 
sarily the  object  of  its  effort;  and  in  the  direction  of 
Constantinople  therefore  moved  the  capital  of  the  Mos- 
lem Empire.  Damascus,  Bagdad,  Broussa,  were  all 
steps  towards  the  conquest  of  the  city  which  was  to 
make  it  master  of  the  world.  Nowhere  did  it  encounter 
an  effectual  resistance  until  it  came  against  a  popula- 
tion animated  by  a  similar  force  and  organised  by  a  still 
higher  religion. 

The  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  the  history  of  the 
growth  and  conflict  of  two  religious  ideas,  —  the  one 
represented  by  the  Cross,  the  other  by  the  Crescent. 
Out  of  this  conflict  the  Cross  came  victorious  not  only  in 
the  field  of  war,  but  also  in  that  of  politics;  and  just  as 
in  ancient  history  that  of  monogamous  and  patriarchal 
tribes,  because  they  laid  down  the  basis  of  our  existing 
civilisation,  interests  us  more  than  that  of  the  metro- 
nymic hordes  which  left  behind  them  no  useful  political 
institutions,  so  the  development  of  Christian  States,  upon 
which  are  laid  the  foundations  of  our  existing  un-Chris- 
tian  governments,  interests  us  more  than  that  of  the 
Mohammedan  hosts  which  still,  owing  to  the  so-called 
European  Concert,  oppresses  and  massacres  our  Christian 
people  in  the  East. 

(c)    The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Disease 

There  is  a  rejuvenescence  of  the  Mohammedan  idea 
now  taking  place  amongst  us  which  it  is  possible  that 
many  of  us  have  failed  to  recognise.  It  is  known  and  for 
the  most  part  despised  under  the  names  Mental  Science, 
Christian  Science,  Menticulture,  etc. ;  it  is  the  modern 


30  INDIVIDUALISM 

form  of  miracle,  and  differs  from  the  old  only  in  the 
professions  made  by  the  healer.  The  miracles  alleged 
to  have  been  performed  in  ancient  times  are  professedly 
witnesses  to  the  divine  mission  of  the  miracle-worker; 
tliose  alleged  to  be  performed  to-day  have  no  special 
relation  to  the  healer  whatever;  on  the  contrary,  he  is 
kept  in  the  background.  He  claims  no  special  qualifi- 
cations, assumes  no  divine  mission;  he  even  disclaims 
miraculous  power,  but  on  the  contrary  attributes  the 
power  he  exercises  to  the  influence  of  the  mind,  which 
he  regards  as  the  highest  power  in  nature,  and  in  fact 
as  the  manifestation  of  divine  omnipotence  in  the  world. 
He  is  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  Stoic  who  denied 
the  existence  of  evil,  and  of  the  Christian  who  proclaimed 
the  omnipotence  of  God,  —  one  being  the  negative,  the 
other  the  affirmative  form  of  the  same  idea ;  but  he  is 
particularly  the  exponent  of  the  Mohammedan  doctrine 
that  every  man  is  the  expression  of  divine  omnipo- 
tence, if  he  will  not  himself  stand  in  the  way  of  that 
expression. 

Now  there  are  certain  diseases,  such  as  those  that  arise 
from  mental  and  nervous  disorders,  which  derive  their 
strength  in  great  part  from  the  domination  of  a  fixed 
idea.  There  is  perhaps  no  essential  difference  between 
the  hysterical  patient  who  believes  himself  to  be  par- 
alysed, and  tlie  balking  horse  which  refuses  to  advance 
because  he  thinks  he  sees  an  insurmountable  obstacle  in 
his  path;  both  are  the  slaves  of  an  idea,  and  the  duty  of 
the  healer  in  such  case  is  not  to  treat  the  body,  but  to  re- 
move the  idea.  It  is  practically  useless  to  beat  a  balking 
horse,  but  if  he  is  turned  round  once  or  twice,  so  as  to 
dissipate  the  obstructing  idea,  he  will  often  i)ass  the 
balking  spot  witliout  the  necessity  of  a  single  blow;  so 
if  a  liysterical  patient  who  believes  himself  incapable 
of  speech  is  etherised  and  suddenly  questioned  before 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  31 

he  is  quite  awake,  so  as  to  appeal  to  his  instincts  before 
the  fixed  idea  can  resume  control,  he  will  find  tongue 
and  answer,  and  in  answering  discover  the  error  under 
which  he  has  been  labouring;  he  will  be  temporarily 
cured  by  the  removal  of  the  controlling  idea.^ 

Now  the  idea  which  can  paralyse  one  man  can  develop 
every  conceivable  disease  in  others;  for  example,  in 
some  cases  it  produces  hemorrhage  in  lungs  that  are 
perfectly  sound.  To  treat  for  consumption  a  hysterical 
patient  who  has  hemorrhage  is  to  confirm  the  idea  and 
thereby  increase  the  disorder;  he  must  be  treated  like  a 
balking  horse ;  he  must  be  rescued  from  the  domination 
of  the  false  idea. 

But  false  ideas  occasion  not  only  acute  symptoms  such 
as  those  described,  but  also  conditions  of  body  which, 
because  they  are  not  attended  by  acute  symptoms,  are 
for  that  reason  all  the  more  baffling ;  such,  for  example, 
is  the  condition  that  prevails  so  extensively  to-day 
under  the  name  nervous  prostration.  It  originates 
doubtless  in  a  real  physical  breakdown,  due  to  overwork 
or  some  other  physical  or  mental  strain ;  but  this  break- 
down creates  in  the  patient  an  idea  of  weakness  which 
maintains  and  enhances  it.  He  learns  to  believe  himself 
incapable  of  sleep,  of  work,  of  effort;  he  loses  courage; 
and  after  his  body  has  recovered  its  vigour  the  domina- 
tion of  a  false  idea  maintains  in  him  a  sense  of  weakness 
which  is  itself  as  false  as  the  paralysis  and  hemorrhage 
in  the  hysterical  patients  above  described. 

It  is  upon  this  class  of  patients  that  Mental  Science 
performs  its  most  astonishing  results,  for  it  substitutes 
for  this  false  idea  of  discouragement  a  healing  idea  of 
strength ;  and  this  healing  idea  is  for  the  most  part  a 
sense  of  oneness  with  God  that  dissipates  the  distracting 
considerations  of  human  weakness.     There  is  nothing 

1  See  the  "  Medical  Journal  "  for  August,  1898. 


32  INDIVIDUALISM 

metaphysical  about  this ;  it  is  practical  to  the  highest 
degree.  If  a  man's  body  is  capable  of  doing  a  certain 
amount  of  work,  but  he  is  possessed  by  the  idea  that  he 
is  not  able  to  do  it,  the  idea  will  paralyse  him ;  if,  on 
the  contrar}%  he  is  possessed  with  the  idea  that  he  is 
able  to  do  it,  this  enabling  idea  will  remove  the  paralysis 
and  restore  his  efficiency.  This  is  the  acknowledged 
conclusion  of  the  medical  profession  in  cases  which  do 
not  admit  of  question ;  it  is  the  explanation  of  the  heal- 
ing miracles  of  Lourdes,  Schlatter,  and  mental  scientists ; 
it  is  the  secret  of  Mohammedan  success,  and  it  is  part  of 
the  gospel  of  Christ:  "For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  If  ye 
have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say  unto 
this  mountain,  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place ;  and  it  shall 
remove;  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you." 

(tf)    The  Power  of  the  Idea  in  Politics 

The  force  of  habit  has  been  insisted  upon  as  explain- 
ing by  far  the  largest  part  of  human  action,  and  as 
constituting  a  part  of  the  strength  and  a  part  of  the 
weakness  of  government.  The  force  of  an  idea  must  now 
be  insisted  upon  as  similarly  constituting  a  large  and 
sometimes  a  determining  role  in  the  character  of  human 
institutions;  and  just  as  unconscious  habit  was  con- 
trasted with  conscious  effort  in  the  framing  of  govern- 
ment, so  must  the  force  of  an  idea  be  contrasted  with  it; 
for  a  man  possessed  by  an  idea  is  just  as  irresponsible 
as  a  runaway  horse ;  in  the  latter  the  idea  of  flight  re- 
places the  idea  of  submission,  and,  his  habits  of  move- 
ment taking  up  the  idea  of  flight,  he  is  hurled  on  his 
way  as  uncontrollably  as  a  driverless  engine  thundering 
along  a  railroad  track. 

It  is  of  extreme  importance  to  keep  in  mind  the  true 
character  of   the  idea  in  framing   political  institutions 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  33 

when  the  idea  is  uncontrolled  by  judgment.  It  does 
not  seem  unreasonable  to  imagine  that  political  move- 
ments that  are  determined  by  ideas  ought  to  be  classed 
among  the  conscious  forces  of  society,  and  yet  this  would 
surely  be  a  profound  mistake.  The  balking  horse  is  not 
a  voluntary  agent,  nor  was  the  conquering  Mohamme- 
dan or  the  inspired  Crusader.  In  ultimate  analysis  all 
are  found  to  be  slaves  of  an  idea.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  savage  who  roams  the  forest  in  search  of  food 
and  the  savage  who,  associated  with  others  like  him, 
marched  to  the  conquest  of  Constantinople,  is  that 
in  the  one  case  he  is  controlled  by  an  individualistic 
idea,  in  the  other  case  the  individualistic  idea  is  re- 
placed by  a  socialising  one;  in  the  one  his  energy  is 
distracted  by  opposing  selfishness,  in  the  other  it  is  con- 
centrated by  a  monopolising  thought;  in  the  one  he  is 
as  feeble  and  helpless  as  a  flake  of  snow,  in  the  other  he 
is  as  overwhelming  as  the  avalanche. 

But  in  both  cases,  so  long  as  he  is  an  automaton 
worked  by  a  force  which  is  not  under  his  control,  he  is 
equally  undeliberate,  equally  unpurposive,  equally  in- 
voluntary; the  difference  is  one  of  effect,  not  one  of 
method.  The  solitary  savage  accomplishes  nothing;  the 
inspired  horde  accomplishes  a  great  deal;  but  neither 
advance  civilisation  very  much ;  they  differ  in  the  uncon- 
scious socialising  force  which  distinguishes  the  bumble- 
bee from  the  hive-bee;  but  this  in  its  nature  is  not 
very  different  from  the  two  phases  through  which  the 
myxomycetes  passes,  —  the  individual  cell  and  the  com- 
pound Plasmodium.  It  is  surely  not  to  the  unconscious 
socialising  force  that  unites  the  cells  of  a  sponge  that 
we  are  to  look  for  characteristic  human  progress ;  human 
progress  differs  essentially  from  that  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals in  the  exercise  of  judgment  and  self-restraint,  or 
in  that  combination  of  the  two  which  is  called  wisdom. 

3 


34  INDIVIDUALISM 

Now  the  wisdom  which  started  and  guided  the  Moslem 
Empire  must  be  sought  in  Mohammed  rather  than  in 
the  Mohammedans;  in  Omar  rather  than  in  the  con- 
quering ranks  of  Amron. 

Let  us  then  be  careful  to  distinguish  the  three  forces 
which  were  at  work  in  this  amazing  history. 

Habit,  which   contributes  the   mechanism    of   all 

animal  action. 
Idea,  which,  when  religious,  by  concentration  con- 
tributes the  strongest  motive  for  human  action. 
Intelligence,  which  deliberately  guides  the  human 

machine  thus  constituted  and  set  at  work. 
Habit,  animated  by  selfishness  alone  and  distracted 
by  it,  has  produced  the  ape,  the  tiger,  the  savage, 
and  the  Ishmaelite. 
Idea,  eliminating  the  distraction  of  many  selfish- 
nesses, produced  the  Mussulman. 
Intelligence,  in  the  persons  of  Mohammed  and 
Omar,   used  the  Mussulman  to  conquer  all  the 
neighbouring  nations  less  highly  socialised,  and 
to  create  the  Moslem  Empire. 
The  history  of   this  empire   has  still   an  important 
lesson    for    us.       Prosperity   brought    to    the    Moslem 
Empire  its  accustomed   fruits:   wealth,  literature,   art, 
science,  music,  rendered  the  Khalifs  of  Bagdad  illustri- 
ous beyond  all  other  rulers  in  the  world;  and  these,  the 
best  results  of  civilisation    unenlightened  by  wisdom, 
emasculated    not  only  the  court,  but  the  people.     No 
longer  willing  or  able  to  face  the  dangers  and  hardships 
of  battle  themselves,  they  enlisted  in  their  service  the 
uncivilised  Tartars  of  Turkestan.     This  new  and  neces- 
sary force  did  for  the  Khalifate  what  the  Proetorian  guard 
had  done  for  Rome ;  succession  to  it  was  determined  no 
longer  by  inheritance,  but  by  assassination;  those  who 
liad  been  called  in  to  defend  the  empire  stayed  to  divide 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  35 

it ;  its  weakness  and  its  wealth  tempted  a  less  peaceable 
invasion  by  the  same  race,  and  the  Turks,  snatching  the 
Mohammedan  idea  from  the  expiring  Mohammedans, 
once  more  undertook  the  original  scheme  of  conquest. 
The  successive  conversion  of  the  Tartars  of  Turkestan 
first;  the  Moguls  of  Genghis  Khan  afterwards;  and 
those  of  Timur  last  of  all,  insured  a  continuous  re- 
newal of  the  stock  which  the  jDrosperity  of  conquest 
was  continuously  corrupting,  and  by  the  time  that  the 
Ottomans,  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  final  result  of 
all  these  forces,  appeared  under  the  walls  of  Constanti- 
nople, the  Christian  idea  which  had  theretofore  resisted 
the  Mohammedan  had  itself  become  divided ;  so  that  the 
last  of  the  Ctesars,  no  longer  propped  by  western  civili- 
sation, fell  at  last  before  the  second  Mohammed  almost 
without  a  blow. 

The  individualistic  Bedouin,  socialised  by  the  genius 
of  ^Mohammed,  corrupted  by  the  wealth  of  Bagdad,  but, 
before  expiring,  handing  on  the  central  Mohammedan 
idea  to  his  despoiler,  —  the  Tartar  first  and  the  Mogul 
afterwards,  —  furnishes  a  pathetic  story  of  high  purposes 
prostituted  to  ignoble  ends.  It  is  one  already  rendered 
familiar  to  us  in  ancient  history,  but  in  a  somewhat  less 
startling  degree ;  for  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  religion 
of  Athens,  Sparta,  and  the  other  Grecian  States,  in  its 
relation  to  politics,  did  more  than  build  up  a  heroic  sort 
of  patriotism ;  and  the  patriotism  was  narrow ;  it  hardly 
transcended  the  city  walls,  and  never  conceived  of  a 
wider  horizon  than  the  City-State.  That  of  Rome  was 
of  much  the  same  order,  but  larger  in  its  scope,  and, 
as  it  set  Rome  upon  the  conquest  of  city  after  city, 
developed  into  the  Nation  and  eventually  into  a  world- 
embracing  Empire.  The  Mohammedan  idea,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  lofty  beyond  all  that  went  before  it,  and 
boundless  in  its  reach.     Allah,  the  omnipotent,  confined 


36  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  no  city,  as  with  the  Greeks,  to  no  race,  as  with  the 
Hebrews;  Himself  eternal  and  manifesting  Himself  in 
no  one  man,  but  in  all  men,  who  became  united  in  Him, 
and  if  obedient  to  His  will,  invincible ;  Allah,  unlimited 
in  space  as  in  time,  embracing  all  humanity  in  one 
concentrated  and  overwhelming  force,  constituted  a 
socialising  force  such  as  the  world  had  not  in  recorded 
history  previously  to  that  time  known. 

It  seems  probable  that  this  was  the  conception  which 
fired  the  enthusiasm  of  Mohammed  in  the  wilderness;  it 
lifted  him  high  above  the  considerations  of  this  world, 
so  that  when  Abu  Talib  urged  him  to  abandon  his  at- 
tacks upon  the  idolatry  of  Mecca,  he  answered :  "  Though 
they  gave  me  the  sun  in  my  right  hand  and  the  moon  in 
my  left,  to  bring  me  back  from  my  undertaking,  yet  will 
I  not  pause  till  the  Lord  carry  my  cause  to  victory  or  till 
I  die."  But  no  mighty  effort  was  ever  made  to  socialise 
men  without  encountering  the  opposition  of  the  individ- 
ualistic instincts  we  share  with  the  tiger  and  the  ape. 
Mohammed  and  his  few  disciples  were  obliged  to  escape 
from  Mecca;  and  when  Medina  opened  her  gates  to 
them,  Mecca  regarded  this  act  of  hospitality  as  a  signal 
for  hostilities.  Thus  immediately  was  a  great  religious 
idea  thrown  into  the  hazard  of  military  tactics ;  and  thus 
Mohammed,  who  had  started  upon  a  purely  religious 
mission,  found  himself  involved  in  a  religious  war. 
There  is  doubtless  an  inconsistency  of  startling  repug- 
nance between  religion  and  war;  but  this  inconsistency 
did  not  shake  the  faith  of  the  Prophet  or  weaken  the 
arm  of  his  disciples.  It  is  not  the  man  of  action  who  is 
checked  by  inconsistency ;  it  is  the  man  of  thought ;  and 
the  career  of  Mohammedan  conquest  knew  no  retiring 
ebb,  but  kept  due  on  from  the  Propontic  to  the  Hel- 
los])ont  until  the  splendour  of  a  Mohammedan  ccmrt 
afforded   the  leisure  to  think. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  37 

And  here  we  come  upon  another  of  the  great  forces 
which  have  been  at  work  in  making  and  unmaking  gov- 
ernment. Reason,  which  so  often  palsies  action,  is  the 
great  enemy  of  religious  enthusiasm,  because  it  opens 
the  door  to  the  spirit  that  doubts ;  and  there  is  probably 
no  religious  idea  so  difficult  to  reconcile  with  reason  as 
that  of  an  all-good  as  well  as  an  all-powerful  God.  Nor 
is  reason  helped  to  accept  this  dogma  by  the  luxury  of 
an  imperial  court.  Self-indulgence  very  soon  suggests 
to  reason  that  the  obvious  mission  of  man  is  the  pursuit 
of  happiness;  and  happiness,  to  one  who  has  all  the 
facilities  for  self-indulgence,  at  once  becomes  synony- 
mous with  surrender  to  animal  propensity.  Culture, 
which  in  its  first  stages  lifts  man  above  the  vulgar 
needs  of  the  body,  learns  at  last  to  minister  to  those 
needs  with  a  refinement  that  transfigures  vice  into  an 
art ;  and  then  the  inconsistency  between  a  religion  that 
teaches  self-restraint  and  institutions  that  make  for  self- 
indulgence  works  out  its  necessary  result.  The  pause 
in  Moslem  conquest  during  the  illustrious  Khalifate  of 
Bagdad ;  the  renewal  of  these  conquests  when  the  cor- 
rupted Mussulman  was  replaced  by  the  uncorrupted 
Turk ;  the  spur  given  to  Moslem  arms  every  time  they 
were  reinforced  by  new  barbaric  blood,  as  by  the  hosts 
of  Genghis  Khan  and  the  Mongols  of  Timur;  and  the 
slow  decay  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  ever  since  the  day  it 
ceased  to  receive  these  reinforcements,  — ■  are  convincing 
witnesses  to  the  hopelessness  of  permanently  building 
institutions  of  selfishness  upon  an  unselfish  religious 
idea.  The  moment  the  inconsistency  of  such  an  effort 
is  given  the  opportunity  to  bear  its  legitimate  results, 
these  results  are  manifested  in  decay.  War,  luxury, 
and  licentiousness  are  inconsistent  with  the  highest  re- 
ligion; religion  must  either  destroy  them,  or  they  will 
destroy  religion.     Man  has  not  yet  seriously  undertaken 


38  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  make  his  institutions  consistent  with  his  religion; 
until  he  does  he  is  doomed  to  the  vicious  circle  so 
clearly  marked  out  by  the  course  of  Mohammedanism; 
the  unselfish  religious  idea  destroying  selfish  irreligious 
communities,  only  itself  to  perish  at  the  very  hands  of 
those  by  whom  its  victories  were  accomplished. 

A  fundamental  problem  of  government  is  to  frame 
institutions  which  will  be  consistent  with  morality.  It 
may  be  immaterial  whether  we  take  our  morality  from 
Confucius  or  Buddha,  Plato  or  Mohannned,  provided 
only  our  institutions  be  consistent  with  it.  Then, 
and  then  only,  will  practice  conform  to  precept,  and 
hypocrisy  cease  to  worship  at  the  altar  of  the  Golden 
Calf. 

§  2.    The  Christian  Idea 

If  now  we  turn  from  the  Crescent  to  the  Cross,  we 
shall  be  struck  with  the  likeness  of  their  respective  his- 
tories notwithstanding  the  profound  differences  which 
distinguish  them ;  and  as  the  differences  may  be  summed 
up  briefly,  whereas  the  history  will  have  to  be  told  at 
greater  length,  it  may  be  well  to  jjoint  out  the  differ- 
ences first. 

In  the  first  place  stands  the  obvious  contrast  between 
the  personality  of  Christ  and  that  of  Moliammed,  —  the 
one  spotless  and  inspiring  love,  the  other  self-indulgent 
and  suggesting  criticism.  Christianity  is  essentially 
the  following  of  Christ;  iMoluunmcdanism  is  essentially 
the  pursuit  of  conquest.  The  Ufe  of  Christ  is  a  pattern; 
that  of  Mohammed  a  warning.  Could  we  all  but  live 
the  life  of  Christ,  the  world  would  be  a  heaven ;  were 
we  all  to  live  the  life  of  Mohammed,  the  world  would 
perhaps  be  still  worse  than  it  is. 

In  the  second  place  the  teaching  of  Christ  is  submis- 
sion, —  not  to  God  only,  but  to  the  ungodly  also;  that 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  39 

of  Mohammed  is,  like  that  of  Christ,  submission  to 
God,  but  to  the  ungodly,  death. 

In  the  third  place  Christ  bore  witness  to  his  doc- 
trine of  non-resistance  on  the  cross;  Mohammed  bore 
witness  to  his  doctrine  of  resistance  on  the  field  of 
battle. 

In  the  fourth  place  Christianity  was  built  upon  the 
family:  "Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother."  Chris- 
tendom is  but  the  extension  of  the  family  so  as  to  em- 
brace all  mankind;  "men  became  brothers  because  they 
acknowledged  a  common  Father";  and  the  unit  of 
Christendom  was  not  the  individual  but  the  family,  in- 
dissolubly  bound  together  by  the  sanctity  of  marriage. 
Mohammedanism  ignored  the  family;  discredited  the 
indissolubility  of  the  marriage  vow;  set  up  only  one 
fountain  of  authority,  —  the  Caliph,  or  representative  of 
the  Prophet.  If  that  fountain  were  troubled,  —  as  it 
sometimes  must  be,  and  ultimately  always  was,  —  there 
was  no  other  source  of  salvation  or  of  strength. 

The  necessary  consequence  of  these  essential  differ- 
ences is  seen  in  the  early  history  of  these  two  religions. 
We  have  seen  that  the  result  of  one  was  a  conquering 
army ;  let  us  now  consider  the  result  of  the  other  in  the 
language  of  one  of  its  earliest  apologists :  — 

"  We  who  formerly  delighted  in  fornication,  but  now  em- 
brace chastity  alone;  we  who  formerly  used  magical  arts, 
dedicate  ourselves  to  the  good  and  unbegotten  God  ;  we 
who  valued,  above  all  things,  the  acquisition  of  wealth  and 
possessions,  now  bring  what  we  have  into  a  common  stock, 
and  communicate  to  every  one  in  need  ;  we  who  hated  and 
destroyed  one  another,  and  on  account  of  their  different 
manners  would  not  live  with  men  of  a  different  tribe,  now, 
since  the  coming  of  Christ,  live  familiarly  with  them,  and 
pray  for  our  enemies,  and  endeavour  to  persuade  those  who 
hate  us  unjustly  to  live  conformably  to  the  good  precepts 


40  INDIVIDUALISM 

of  Christ,  to  the  end  that  they  may  become  partakers  with 
us  of  the  same  joyful  hope  of  a  reward  from  God,  the  Ruler 
of  all."  1 

It  must  be  regretfully  admitted  that  the  description 
given  by  Justin,  while  probably  true  as  regards  a  con- 
siderable fraction  of  the  Christian  Church,  was  lament- 
ably untrue  as  regards  the  remainder.  There  can  be 
no  church  without  organisation,  and  there  can  be  no 
organisation  without  rank.  The  hierarchy  to  which 
organisation  necessarily  gave  rise  set  the  deacon  above 
the  congregation,  the  priest  above  the  deacon,  and  the 
bishop  above  the  priest;  and  wherever  in  congregations 
of  men  one  is  set  above  another,  there  immediately  is 
room  given  for  the  play  of  passion,  jealousy,  and  vindic- 
tiveness.  Every  church  that  has  ever  existed  must,  so 
long  as  man  has  a  vestige  of  human  passion  in  him,  suffer 
from  this  necessary  feature  of  church  organisation. 

Nor  are  the  conflicts  which  arise  in  a  church  confined 
to  desire  for  office  and  consideration;  men  will  con- 
scientiously differ  regarding  matters  of  belief,  and  it  is 
just  these  differences  of  belief  that  the  ambitious  will 
seize  upon  as  an  excuse  for  ousting  those  who  stand  in 
their  way.  In  this  way  ambition  for  ecclesiastical  pre- 
ferment exaggerates  differences  of  faith,  encourages 
heresy,  and  fans  heresy  into  sedition. 

The  distracted  condition  of  the  Christian  Church 
upon  matters  of  dogma,  the  shameful  scramble  for  eccle- 
siastical office,  and  the  baseness  of  some  of  those  who 
occupied  episcopal  chairs  even  before  the  prosperous 
era  of  Constantino,  demonstrate  the  fact  tliat  wealth  is 
not  the  only  cause  for  unliappiness  to  mankind,  and  dis- 
parages the  arguments  of  those  who  think  that  the  elim- 
ination of  wealth  will  suffice  to  make  men  happy. 

1  The  First  Apology  of  Justin  Martyr,  chap.  xiv. 


INDIVIDUALISM   TN   HISTORY  41 

Long  before  the  adoption  of  Christianity  by  Constan- 
tine,  Novatus  (if  we  are  to  believe  Eusebius),  having 
aspired  to  the  bishopric  of  Rome  and  been  disappointed, 
secured  a  "shadowy  and  empty  imposition  of  hands" 
from  a  collection  of  bishops  whom  he  had  recruited  from 
the  provinces,  shut  up,  and  "heated  with  wine  and 
surfeiting;  "  and  yet  it  is  Novatus  who  was  the  founder 
of  the  sect  which,  on  account  of  the  boasted  purity  of 
their  morals,  assumed  the  name  of  Cathari.  Before 
Constantine  a  hundred  heresies  had  served  the  purpose 
of  intrigue  and  ambition,  and  Arius  had  already  begun 
his  war  upon  the  ofMoovaiov,  which  was  for  centuries  to 
serve  as  a  battle-cry  for  political  as  well  as  ecclesiastical 
faction. 

Nevertheless,  although  the  Church  was  distracted  by 
heresy  and  often  disgraced  by  corruption,  there  were 
doubtless,  prior  to  its  adoption  by  Constantine,  districts 
where  the  precepts  of  Christ  Avere  practised  even  to  the 
extent  of  holding  property  in  common;  and  wherever 
the  grossest  abuses  are  found,  they  can  generally  be 
traced  to  exceptional  prosperity. 

As  soon  as  the  Church  began  to  receive  imperial 
favours,  Christianity  became  a  profession,  and  was  made 
to  serve  the  purposes  of  ambition  and  avarice.  The 
wealthy  firat  and  the  poor  afterwards  joined  the  Church 
for  no  other  ol)ject  than  to  enjoy  the  patronage  which 
she  now  had  to  distribute ;  it  is  even  stated  that  twelve 
thousand  men  were  baptised  at  Rome,  besides  a  propor- 
tional number  of  women  and  children,  upon  the  promise 
to  each  convert  of  a  white  garment  and  twenty  pieces  of 
gold.^  Cities  which  voluntarily  destroyed  their  heathen 
temples  were  rewarded  with  municipal  privileges.  The 
property  of  which  Christians  had  been  stripped  by 
Diocletian  was  restored  to  them.     The  Edict  of  Milan 

1  Gibbon,  vol.  iii,  p.  24. 


42  INDIVIDUALISM 

permitted  churches  to  hold  landed  property,  and  sub- 
sequently Constantine  specifically  authorised  bequests 
to  the  Catholic  Church.  The  Emperor  presented  large 
sums  of  money  for  the  relief  of  churches  in  Africa, 
Numidia,  and  Mauritania ;  he  ordered  a  regular  allowance 
of  corn  for  the  support  of  monastic  institutions ;  he  built 
temples  and  adorned  them  with  gold  and  silver,  silk 
and  gems.  Imperfect  rent-rolls  bear  witness  to  the 
large  property  held  by  some  of  the  churches  during  his 
reign ;  and  the  Church  very  soon  acquired  a  power  the 
ultimate  extent  of  which  Constantine  probably  did  not 
foresee.  He  did  not  appreciate  that  the  right  of  parish- 
ioners to  elect  their  own  priests  and  bishops  took  the 
appointment  of  thousands  of  magistrates  out  of  his 
hands;  nor  that  the  so-called  ecclesiastical  courts,  the 
right  of  the  bishop  to  act  as  censor  of  the  morals  of  his 
people,  and  the  opportunities  afforded  by  freedom  of 
public  preaching  were  to  create  a  power  in  the  State 
destined  eventually  to  supersede  that  of  the  Emperor 
himself. 

The  Church,  however,  was  still  in  tutelage  to  the 
State;  for  it  was  the  ratification  of  the  Nicene  Creed  by 
the  Emperor  that  Ijanished  Arius  to  lUyricum  and  gave 
a  sanction  to  the  orthodox  faith  by  punishing  with 
death  all  persons  found  in  possession  of  heretical  writ- 
ings. From  this  moment  religious  faith  became  irretriev- 
ably committed  to  the  varying  fortunes  of  politics,  and 
to  the  intrigues  of  eunuchs  in  the  Emperor's  palace. 

Wlien  the  Pagan  Julian  assumed  the  purple,  lie  swept 
all  Christians  out  of  public  office  with  as  little  mercy 
and  as  systematic  method  as  Tammany  emj^loys  when 
she  replaces  a  Republican  administration.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  soon  as  Julian  was  replaced  b}-  a  Christian 
emperor  the  reverse  process  took  place;  and  under 
Theodosius  the  Church  had   become   so   strong  that  a 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  43 

bishop  was  able  to  humiliate  the  Emperor  himself  by 
stopping  him  on  the  porch  of  the  church  and  refusing 
him  entrance  to  the  sanctuary.  "  You  have  imitated 
David  in  his  crime,"  said  the  audacious  Ambrose;  "imi- 
tate him  also  in  his  repentance."  Nor  did  the  Church 
hesitate  to  avail  herself  of  her  influence;  she  secured 
the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  ancient  faith, 
appropriated  the  revenues  of  its  priests  and  vestals,  and 
was  not  content  till  she  secured  the  destruction  of 
heathen  temples  in  the  provinces  and  their  consecra- 
tion to  the  worship  of  Christ  in  Rome. 

But  the  Church  was  doomed  speedily  to  suffer  the 
consequences  of  her  own  aggression.  She  borrowed 
from  the  religion  she  destroyed  much  of  its  luxurious 
ritual  and  many  of  its  most  foolish  superstitions.  The 
idolatry  of  the  ancient  city  became  revived  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church  under  the  guise  of  the  worship  of  Christian 
martyrs ;  miracles  were  performed  upon  their  relics,  and 
the  bones  of  malefactors  fraudulently  represented  to  be 
those  of  deceased  saints  were  used  to  replenish  her 
always  emptying  coffers. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  victories  of 
Clovis  were  rendered  permanent  by  the  support  he  re- 
ceived from  the  bishops  in  his  conquered  territory. 
The  conversion  of  Clovis,  however,  was  not  an  isolated 
fact  during  this  troubled  period ;  on  the  contrary,  when- 
ever the  barbarians  came  into  contact  with  the  Christian 
Church  the  latter  led  captivity  captive  by  subduing  her 
conquerors. 

So  long  as  the  barbarians  refused  communion  with 
the  See  of  Rome,  so  long  they  failed  to  found  a  State  or 
attain  civilisation ;  but  when,  adopting  Christianity,  they 
acquired  the  socialising  force  which  at  that  period 
seemed  to  radiate  from  the  Papal  chair,  then,  and  then 
only,  did   they   acquire  the   permanent   settlement   by 


44  INDIVIDUALISM 

which  alone  was  a  record  secured  in  history.  And  it 
seems  immaterial  whether  the  gospel  was  imposed  upon 
them  by  the  sword,  or  whether  by  the  sword  they  con- 
quered it.  The  victorious  Normans  under  Rollo,  and 
the  Tartar  hordes  subjugated  by  Henry  the  Fowler,  were 
equally  ungoverned  and  ungovernable  until,  the  one  by 
adopting  Christianity  and  the  others  by  submitting  to 
it,  imprinted  the  names  of  Normandy  and  Hungary  per- 
manently upon  the  map  of  Europe.  When  Pepin,  res- 
tive under  the  feeble  yoke  of  the  Merovingian  Dynasty, 
asked  whether  he  who  maintained  the  crown  should 
not  also  wear  it,  it  was  to  Rome  that  he  applied  for  an 
answer,  and  it  was  from  Rome  that  the  answer  came. 
When  later  Charlemagne  looked  for  a  symbol  under 
which  he  could  extend  his  empire  and  consolidate  it,  it 
was  to  Rome  he  looked,  and  it  was  from  Rome  once 
more  that  the  symbol  came.  And  when  the  German 
kings  sought  the  succession  to  the  Carlovingian  Empire, 
it  was  in  Rome  that  they  seized  and  assumed  the  impe- 
rial crown. 

But  the  power  of  the  Christian  idea  must  not  be  exag- 
gerated or  misunderstood;  Success  did  not  alwaj-s 
attend  upon  Christian  arms.  Far  from  it.  Not  one  of 
all  the  Christian  peoples  successfully  resisted  the  Pagan 
pirates  of  Scandinavia;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  the 
terror  of  all  Christian  kings ;  and  Charlemagne  is  said 
to  have  shed  tears  when  he  saw  their  galle3-s  in  the 
Mediterranean.  And  yet,  when  they  wrested  the  fairest 
province  of  France  from  the  simple  Charles,  Cliristianity 
converted  a  race  of  adventurers  into  the  future  founders 
of  the  British  Empire.  The  claim  of  the  miraculous  for 
the  Roman  Church  must  be  left  to  those  who  write 
history  in  licr  interests ;  to  political  students  her  strength 
must  be  confined  to,  and  may  be  explained  by,  a  Jess 
mystical  origin. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  45 

And  yet,  if  we  compare  the  conception  of  the  Church 
entertained  by  Christ  with  the  place  occupied  by  the 
Church  under  her  most  illustrious  prelates,  it  will  be 
found  that  one  is  a  wonderful  and  almost  miraculous 
realisation  of  the  other. 

The  prayer  which  Christ  dictated  to  his  disciples  is 
perhaps  the  finest  expression  of  the  Christian  creed: 
"Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven;  hallowed  be  Thy 
name ;  Tliy  kingdom  come  ;  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as 
it  is  in  Heaven."  A  universal  Father;  a  universal  king- 
dom ;  a  universal  worship ;  a  universal  peace,  —  these  are 
the  aims  of  Christianity.  Nor  is  the  word  "  kingdom  " 
altogether  figurative ;  it  is  a  kingdom  not  of  this  world, 
but  nevertheless  a  kingdom ;  and  a  kingdom  that  was 
spiritually  to  bind  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  —  Gens 
Sancta,  a  holy  nation  according  to  Saint  Peter,  and 
according  to  Saint  Augustine,  Civitas  Dei,  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

Now,  whatever  opinions  we  may  entertain  regarding 
the  inconsistencies  which  disfigured  the  Christian  faith 
and  the  crimes  by  which  this  faith  was  imposed  upon 
the  world;  whatever  may  have  been  the  deficiencies  of 
the  men  through  whom  the  Civitas  Dei  was  founded ; 
whatever  may  have  been  the  varying  fortunes  of  Papal 
arms  in  the  struCTCTle  of  the  Church  against  the  German 
Empire,  it  can  hardly  be  contested  that  in  the  period 
which  not  long  ago  it  was  usual  to  characterise  as  the 
Dark  Ages,  but  which  to-day  we  have  learned  to  regard 
as  in  one  respect  the  most  human  of  all  the  periods 
through  which  humanity  has  passed,  there  was  estab- 
lished in  Europe  a  moral  power  to  which  the  kings  of 
the  earth  submitted,  and  before  which  they  laid  down 
their  arms.  And  this  moral  power  governed  not  only 
rulers  and  princes,  but  it  governed  the  mass  of  the 
people  also,  and  entered  into  the  lives  of  the  men  as 


46  INDIVIDUALISM 

well  as  of  the  women  of  that  time.  And  this  is  the 
testimony  of  lay  historians  as  well  as  of  the  clergy. 
In  his  Twelfth  Lecture  ^  Guizot  says :  — 

"  I  must  call  your  attention  to  a  fact  which  stands  at  the  head 
of  all  others,  and  characterises  the  Christian  Church  in  general, 
—  a  fact  which,  so  to  speak,  has  decided  its  destiny.  This  fact 
is  the  unity  of  the  Church,  the  unity  of  the  Christian  society, 
irrespectively  of  all  diversities  of  time,  of  place,  of  power,  of 
language,  of  origin.  Wonderful  plienotnenon  !  It  is  just  at 
tlie  moment  when  the  Roman  Empire  is  breaking  up  and  dis- 
appearing that  the  Christian  Church  gathers  itself  up  and  takes 
its  definite  form.  Political  unity  perishes,  religious  unity 
emerges.  Populations  endlessly  different  in  origin,  habits, 
speech,  destiny,  rush  upon  the  scene;  all  becomes  local  and 
particular ;  every  enlarged  idea,  every  general  institution,  every 
great  social  arrangement,  is  lost  sight  of;  and  in  this  moment 
the  Christian  Church  proclaims  most  loudly  the  unity  of  its 
teaching,  the  universality  of  its  law.  And  from  the  bosom  of 
the  most  frightful  disorder  the  world  has  ever  seen  has  arisen 
the  largest  and  purest  idea,  perhaps,  which  ever  drew  men 
together,  —  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  society." 

Bryce,  again,  points  out  that  men  "  do  not,  cannot,  un- 
derstand the  intense  fascination  whicli  tlie  idea  of  one 
all-pervading  Church  exercised  upon  their  mediaeval 
forefathers.  "2 

There  is  not  an  institution  of  the  period  but  is  founded 
upon  a  religious  idea.  When  the  Italian  cities  under- 
took to  organise  their  own  defence,  their  standards  bore 
the  image  of  Christ,  and  a  priest  said  daily  Mass  at  an 
altar  placed  in  front  of  the  sacred  car;  when  the  grocers 
of  England  united  to  protect  their  trade,  tlieir  first  care 
was  to  fix  tlie  stipend  of  a  priest  who  was  to  conduct 
their  religious  services  and  pray  for  their  deadj  when 

■•^  Holy  IJoiiKin  Empire,  8th  cd.  pp.  373,  374. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  47 

brigandage  and  blood  revenge  were  devastating  the 
land,  it  was  the  Church  which  secured  the  Truce  of 
God,  out  of  which  began  the  effort  to  render  war  less 
constant  and  less  inhumane.  The  guild  was  religious ; 
the  municipality  which  grew  out  of  the  guild  was  reli- 
gious ;  and  it  was  from  religion  that  the  King  derived 
his  title.  Often  and  for  many  years  together  the 
Pope  dictated  the  policy  of  nations,  and  as  late  as 
the  fourteenth  century,  when  the  Papacy  had  already 
lost  much  of  its  |)ower,  we  see  Clement  VI.  imposing 
peace  on  Philip  of  France  and  the  victorious  Edward  of 
England. 

This  was  the  Age  of  Faith,  —  the  age  -which  erected 
all  over  Europe  cathedrals  instinct  with  the  same  idea ; 
which  filled  their  Gothic  arches  with  stained  glass; 
which  preached  the  Crusades,  and,  before  expiring, 
CTuided  the  brush  of  Botticelli. 

And  such  was  the  power  of  this  faith  and  such  the 
unquestioning  servility  to  it  of  the  human  mind,  that  it 
remained  the  dominant  factor  in  the  lives  of  men,  al- 
though its  ministers  were  in  great  part  corrupt,  violent, 
and  unchaste.  It  is  not  necessary  in  this  century  to 
dwell  on  the  dark  side  of  the  picture;  for  the  dark  side 
is  doubtless  more  familiar  than  the  bright.  Our  task 
must  be  rather  to  seek  the  causes  of  the  decay  which  in 
undermining  the  Church  of  Rome  undermined  also  the 
faith  which  had  so  long  upheld  her. 

The  forces  at  work  in  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages  were  strikingly  similar  to  those  already  pointed 
out  as  operating  in  the  Moslem  Empire.  There  was  the 
force  of  habit  which  constituted  the  animal  machine ; 
there  was  the  force  of  the  Christian  Idea,  which  never- 
theless influenced  the  human  machine ;  and  there  was  be- 
hind this  idea  the  organisation  of  the  Church,  guided  by 
such  men  as  the  first  and  seventh  Gregories.      The  idea 


48  INDIVIDUALISM 

practised  as  well  as  taught  by  Christ  and  His  apostles 
was  an  infinitely  higher  one  than  that  which  was  ever 
effectually  practised  by  the  Mohammedans ;  but  by  the 
time  it  had  been  corrupted  by  compromise  with  the  Pa- 
gan worship  of  Rome  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the 
barbaric  superstitions  of  the  Goths  on  the  other,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say  whether  it  was  an  improvement 
as  a  social  force  on  the  Moslem  faith.  Two  essential 
characteristics,  however,  served  to  distinguish  it:  it 
remained  monogamous  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the 
second  it  was  preserved  in  its  purity  and  handed  down 
from  one  generation  to  another  through  the  lives  of  a 
few  holy  men  and  women  in  communities  similar  if  not 
identical  with  that  founded  by  Saint  Vincent  of  Paul. 

We  should  go  far  astray,  however,  if  we  attributed 
to  the  mass  of  the  people  the  holy  lives  and  motives 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact  were  confined  to  a  very  few  in- 
dividuals and  associations.  The  vast  majority  was  gov- 
erned by  religious  ideas  as  unholy  and  as  inconsistent 
as  those  which  governed  their  Ottoman  invaders.  Igno- 
rant people,  whose  lives  are  determined  by  habit,  are 
like  well-broken  steeds ;  it  is  immaterial  who  the  rider 
is  so  long  as  he  can  sit  the  saddle  and  handle  the  reins. 
The  liorse,  whose  habit  has  become  one  of  su])mission, 
will  obey  the  rider,  whether  he  be  a  son  of  Belial  or  an 
angel  of  light.  So  will  ignorant  people  remain  subser- 
vient to  the  idea  which  possesses  them,  differing,  how- 
ever, from  the  lower  animal  in  this  vital  point,  —  that 
whereas  the  latter  is  controlled  only  by  physical  force, 
the  former  is  amenable  also  to  a  spiritual  idea.  To 
what  extent  he  is  amenable  to  it;  how  far  the  idea  can 
become  corrupt  and  still  command  his  obedience;  at 
what  point  he  will  grow  restive  under  it  and  throw  it 
off,  —  is  written  in  clearest  characters  in  the  history  of 
the  Age  of  Faith. 


INDIVIDULAISM  IN   HISTORY  49 

At  war  with  this  force  of  a  religions  idea  were  the 
selfish  motives  which  set  men  upon  the  satisfaction  of 
their  animal  proj)ensities  in  spite  of  it;  and  these  selfish 
motives  not  only  set  men  upon  using  the  Church  to  serve 
their  purposes,  but  set  the  Church  upon  using  them  to 
maintain  her  power.  One  of  the  most  fatal  of  the  leg- 
acies which  the  Roman  Empire  left  the  Roman  Church 
was  temporal  power ;  for  temporal  power  could  only  be 
maintained  by  the  use  of  the  same  methods  as  were 
adopted  by  the  temporal  powers  about  her.  Another, 
equally  fatal,  of  these  legacies  was  the  habit  of  using 
methods  which  were  irreconcilably  inconsistent  with 
the  teaching  of  Christ. 

Our  whole  understanding  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  apt 
to  be  warped  by  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  Constan- 
tine  was  converted  by  Christianity.  Constantine  was 
not  converted  by  Christianity,  but  Christianity  was  cor- 
rupted by  Constantine.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  so 
far  as  the  French  poet,  who  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Constantine,  — ■ 

"  Mais  tous  mes  soins  pour  sa  grandeur  supreme 
N'eurent  jamais  d'autre  objet  que  moi-meme  ; 
Les  saints  autels  n'etaient  k  mes  regards 
Qu'un  marchepied  du  trone  des  Cesars. 
L'or  des  chretiens,  leurs  intrigues,  leur  sang, 
Ont  cimente  ma  fortune  et  mon  rang  ; " 

nor  is  it  necessary  to  point  to  the  fact  that  after  his 
alleged  conversion  he  murdered  his  own  son,  and  post- 
poned his  baptism  till  the  hour  of  his  death.  These  facts 
go  to  prove  that  Constantine  did  not  practise  the  pre- 
cepts he  preached ;  but  this  must  also  be  said  of  some 
of  the  most  distinguished  prelates  of  the  Church.  And 
even  to-day  the  man  who  stands  for  all  the  evils  against 
which  Christ  preached  is    maintained  upon  his  throne 

by  the  so-called  Christian  Powers  of  Europe.     We  are 

4 


50  INDIVIDUALISM 

every  one  of  us  in  our  own  time  so  inconsistent  in  every 
hour  of  our  lives  that  mere  inconsistency  or  an  occa- 
sional crime  furnishes  no  argument  against  a  man's  sin- 
cerity as  the  word  is  in  practice  understood  amongst 
us.  But  the  political  student  is  concerned  with  facts 
more  than  with  motives;  and  however  pure  or  impure 
may  have  been  the  motives  of  Constantine,  the  fact 
remains  that  Justin  Martyr's  account  of  a  Christian 
community  is  conformable  with  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
whereas  the  change  which  came  over  the  Christian 
Church  through  its  adoption  by  Constantine  was  one 
which  made  such  a  community  from  that  time  forth 
impossible. 

It  is  not  so  much  the  fact  that  such  communities 
disappeared  subsequently  to  Constantino's  adoption  of 
Christianity  as  the  fact  that  they  must  necessarily  have 
disappeared,  which  is  of  interest  to  the  political  student. 
The  mere  fact  of  disappearance  might  be  attributed  to 
some  other  cause;  but  the  intrinsic  inconsistency  be- 
tween the  conditions  necessary  for  the  existence  of  such 
communities  and  the  conditions  wliich  prevailed  under 
the  patronage  of  Constantine  cannot  be  explained  awa}'. 

As  soon  as  the  Church  became  a  political  machine,  in 
the  same  sense  as  Tammany  Hall  is  a  political  machine, 
because  only  through  the  favour  of  such  a  machine  could 
public  office  be  attained,  that  moment  the  Christian  in 
the  Church  became  swamped  by  the  horde  of  office- 
seekers  which  invaded  lier;  that  moment  she  became 
one  of  the  instrumentalities  througli  which  greed  and 
ambition  could  secure  their  aim ;  and  that  moment 
human  passions  were  let  loose  upon  her  which  made 
short  work  of  charity  and  poverty  of  spirit. 

Singularly  enough,  although  Christian  virtues  have 
been  and  are  still  practised  by  individuals  all  over  the 
civilised    world,   it   is   difficult  to  find  them    practised 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  51 

consistently  and  persistently  by  permanent  groups,  ex- 
cept in  associations  of  men  and  women  who  are  com- 
mitted by  the  rules  of  their  order  to  a  community  life, 
and  are  thereby  separated  from  the  outside  world.  It 
is  in  convents  and  monasteries,  among  Sisters  of  Char- 
ity, among  Shakers  and  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor,  that 
we  find  practised  the  precepts  taught  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount :  within  these  communities  it  seems  possible 
to  practise  them ;  outside  of  them  men  smile  at  the  idea 
of  attempting  it. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  add  to  the  foregoing 
arguments  the  obvious  one  to  be  drawn  from  the  life  of 
Constantine  himself.  No  one  familiar  with  the  events 
of  his  reign  can  for  a  moment  believe  that  his  so-called 
conversion  exercised  much,  if  any,  influence  upon  his 
conduct  so  far  as  the  practice  of  virtue  is  concerned. 
All  that  can  be  said  is  that  had  he  remained  Pagan  he 
might  have  been  worse ;  but  in  that  case  he  would  have 
to  be  ranked  amongst  the  most  infamous  of  an  infamous 
line.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  compare  the  life  of  the 
Imperial  Court  with  that  of  the  community  described 
by  Justin  ^Martyr,  the  contrast  becomes  so  striking  as 
to  provoke  inquiry. 

Constantine  led  a  Christian  life  no  more  than  any 
of  his  successors;  and  this  for  a  very  simple  reason. 
The  virtues  preached  by  Christ  are  essentially  inconsis- 
tent with  those  necessary  under  existing  conditions  to 
maintain  a  throne ;  the  art  of  ruling  a  Christian  king- 
dom consists  in  professing  Christianit}^  and  practising 
Paganism;  the  one  is  needed  to  secure  Christian  sub- 
mission from  Christian  subjects,  and  the  other  indispen- 
sable to  protect  the  kingdom  from  wolfish  kings.  And 
so  it  ma}^  be  said  that  the  art  of  government  has  by  the 
profession  of  Christian  faith  become  the  art  of  hypoc- 


52  INDIVIDUALISM 

risy.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  hypocrisy,  in  the 
splendid  career  which  it  has  made  for  itself  through- 
out our  modern  civilisation,  is  peculiarly  a  product  of 
Christianity,  or  rather  of  that  compromise  between 
Christianity  and  Paganism  which  dates  from  the  reign 
of  Constantine.  We  have  heard  so  much  of  soi-disant 
Christian  virtues  and  grown  so  restive  under  them,  that 
it  is  with  a  sense  of  relief  that  we  open  our  eyes  to  what 
may  be  called  a  characteristically  Christian  vice.  In 
Greece  and  Rome  there  was  no  profession  of  universal 
love,  of  humility,  of  poverty  of  spirit ;  on  the  contrary, 
morality  there  consisted  of  courage,  sacrifice  of  self  to 
the  city,  patriotism,  chastity,  and  in  fact  those  virtues 
which  are  necessary  to  a  fierce  and  aggressive  worship 
and  defence  of  the  home.  Now  all  these  virtues  they 
not  only  preached,  but  practised.  There  were  doubt- 
less hypocrites  in  those  days  also,  and  religion  was  used 
and  abused  then  as  now  to  serve  the  ambition  of  a  priest 
or  tyrant.  But  the  mass  of  the  people  were  not  daily, 
hourly,  corrupted  by  pretending  to  virtues  which  they 
in  secret  despised.  How  much  did  the  haughty  Hilde- 
brand,  in  his  triumph  over  the  barefooted  and  prostrate 
Henry,  practise  humility?  How  much  poverty  of  spirit 
can  we  discover  in  the  fighting  prelates  who  succeeded 
one  another  during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  in 
the  See  of  Rome  ?  How  much  universal  love  is  to  be 
traced  in  the  aggressive  Christian  nations  which  are  now 
quarrelling  over  the  still  living  limbs  of  China;  or  in 
the  prayer  of  our  own  congressional  cha])lain,  who  asks 
the  Almighty  to  make  us,  through  our  Saviour  Christ, 
"quick  to  resent"?  Witli  what  secret  derision  does 
the  business  man  of  our  own  city  and  every  otlier  city  in 
the  world  trample  on  these  so-called  Christian  virtues 
in  his  daily  struggle  to  increase  his  own  wealth  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  neighbour  !     And  yet  with  what  unctuous- 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  53 

ness  does  this  same  citizen  perform  his  duties  as  a  ves- 
tryman on  the  so-called  Lord's  Day!  Now  in  Greece 
and  Rome  there  was  but  little  of  this  kind  of  hypocrisy 
because  there  was  but  little  need  of  it;  there  was  no 
pretence  of  loving  one's  enemies ;  on  the  contrar}^,  there 
was  a  bold  profession  of  hating  them.  There  was  no 
pretence  of  turning  the  other  cheek;  on  the  contrary, 
there  was  a  wholesome  respect  for  the  blow  which  re- 
turned a  blow.  Above  all,  there  was  no  pretence  of 
humility.  And  this  virtue,  which  is  in  one  sense  the 
highest  because  the  most  non-natural,  would  have  ex- 
cited in  the  Greek  and  Roman  only  aversion  and  con- 
tempt. If  their  ideal  was  low,  it  was  at  any  rate  one 
not  inconsistent  with  their  daily  life  and  their  delib- 
erately constructed  institutions;  and  if  it  encouraged 
ferocity  and  war,  it  at  any  rate  rendered  unnecessary 
the  most  contemptible  of  all  vices,  —  because  the  most 
cowardly  and  the  most  refined,  —  hypocrisy. 

Were  we  to  disregard  this  patent  and  indisputable  fact, 
we  should  lose  sight  of  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors 
that  have  been  at  work  in  framing  our  mental  constitu- 
tion ;  we  are  every  one  of  us  to-day  the  product  of  the 
practice  of  hypocrisy  during  countless  generations ;  it 
has  become  as  much  a  part  of  our  mental  habit  as  the 
taking  of  regular  meals  is  a  part  of  our  bodily  habit ; 
and  it  has  created  in  us  a  capacity  for  inconsistency  of 
which  we  are  ourselves  for  the  most  part  unconscious. 
We  have  to  break  through  this  crust  of  mental  obliquity 
if  we  are  to  judge  of  political  institutions  justly;  and  if 
we  fail  to  judge  of  them  justly  we  are  apt  to  have  our  crust 
broken  for  us  by  titanic  forces  which  we  have  not  had  the 
sight  to  see  or  the  understanding  properly  to  appreciate. 
If  we  can  rid  ourselves  of  the  blindness  which  the  long 
practice  of  egotism  and  hypocrisy  have  fastened  upon 
us,  we  may  see  things  as  they  are  and  not  as  we  want 


54  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  see  them ;  and  a  good  test  of  our  ability  to  do  this  is 
presented  by  our  willingness  to  recognise  the  incontro- 
vertible fact  that  Christianity  has  been  used  to  bolster 
government  and  scouted  in  the  administration  of  it. 

This  fact  is  not  stated  here  by  way  of  reproach,  —  far 
from  it ;  nothing  in  the  world  is  more  inconceivably  im- 
possible than  a  Roman  emperor  practising  Christianity. 
It  would  be  as  mad  to  reproach  the  sea  for  her  wrecks 
as  Constantine  for  his  perversion. 

All  we  are  concerned  with  here  is  the  fact ;  and  if  it 
is  insisted  upon  at  wearisome  length  it  is  because  the 
fact  is  one  which  we  have  for  centuries  been  persist- 
ently refusing  to  admit ;  we  still  talk  of  our  governments 
as  Christian  governments,  and  we  have  actually  got  to 
think  of  them  as  Christian  governments.  So  long  as 
this  mental  obliquity  persists  in  us,  we  might  as  well 
give  up  the  attempt  usefully  to  study  politics.  As  well 
ask  a  blind  man  to  use  a  microscope.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  are  able  to  recognise  that  from  the  day  Con- 
stantine prostituted  a  holy  idea  to  prop  up  an  unholy 
empire,  although  the  Pagan  Empire  remained  Pagan,  the 
Christian  Church  ceased  to  be  Christian,  then  we  see 
things  as  they  really  were,  and  not  as  they  are  presented 
to  us  by  a  misleading  vocabulary. 

The  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  will  from  this  point 
of  view  turn  out  to  be  a  struggle  of  humanitv  with  in- 
consistencies  of  which  it  was  but  dimly  conscious  ;  and 
the  habits  of  thought  and  action  which  this  strucrcfle 
created  constitute  an  essential  factor  in  the  political 
problems  of  to-day.  The  difference  between  the  civili- 
sation of  to-day  and  that  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  mainly 
this :  until  the  Reformation  faith  was  the  controlling 
force  among  the  masses  ;  since  tlie  Reformation  faith  as 
a  force  has  diminished  more  and  more.     The  influence 


INDIVIDUALISM   IX   HISTORY  55 

of  faith  upon  political  institutions  before  the  Reforma- 
tion and  the  effect  of  its  disappearance  upon  institutions 
since  that  time  are  matters  of  paramount  importance  to 
political  students. 

The  power  of  faith  ^  —  that  is  to  say,  of  a  controlling 
religious  idea  —  has  already  been  referred  to  in  the  brief 
account  given  of  Mohammedanism.  The  foi'ce  which 
built  up  the  western  civilisation  of  the  Middle  Ages  out 
of  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  of  the  same  nature. 
In  both  cases  the  power  of  the  religious  idea  to  secure 
submission  from,  and  arouse  enthusiasm  in,  the  masses  of 
the  people,  has  been  used  and  abused  with  remorseless 
disregard  for  the  effect  of  such  abuse  upon  both  religion 
and  the  people ;  it  was  used  by  kings  at  one  time,  and 
by  the  Church  at  others,  to  push  the  interests  of  the 
crown  and  tiara  respectively.  Thus  we  find  Pepin 
appealing  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  for  moral  sanction  of 
the  usurpation  of  the  French  crown ;  and  we  find  the 
Pope  in  turn  demanding  his  price  for  the  sanction  by  an 
appeal  to  Pepin  for  succour  in  his  contest  with  the  Lon- 
gobardi.  Pepin  rewarded  the  Pope  by  wresting  from  the 
Lombards  the  ex-archate  of  Ravenna  and  by  bestowing 
this  ex-archate  on  the  Pope,  thereby  laying  the  first  sul> 
stantial  foundations  of  his  temporal  power.  But  the 
power  which  a  religious  idea  exerted  on  the  masses  of 
the  people  was  too  essential  to  the  crown  for  kings  to 
leave  it  where  it  belonged,  —  in  the  Christian  Church  ; 
and  the  Christian  Church  was  too  ambitious  to  leave 
temporal  power  where  it  belonged,  —  to  so-called  Chris- 
tian kings.  We  find,  therefore,  political  power  moving 
from  the  secular  crown  to  the  ecclesiastical  tiara,  and 
back  again  from  the  ecclesiastical  tiara  to  the  secular 
crown,  according  to  the  genius  of  those  who  respectively 

1  For  an  explanation  of  the  word  "faith"  as  here  used,  see  post, 
book  ii.  chap.  vi.  §  3. 


56  INDIVIDUALISM 

wore  them.  Thus  Charlemagne,  who  consented  to  re- 
ceive from  the  Church  the  moral  sanction  conferred  by 
his  coronation  at  Rome,  did  not  hesitate  to  maintain  his 
authority  over  the  Church  which  gave  that  sanction  ;  for 
most  of  his  capitularies  relate  to  the  discipline  of  the 
Church,  There  is  no  attempt  in  his  laws  to  distinguish 
between  those  which  are  of  a  secular  and  those  which 
are  of  an  ecclesiastical  order ;  nor  were  these  capitula- 
ries and  ecclesiastical  laws  submitted  to  the  bishop  or 
the  Pope;  Charlemagne  took  his  authority  on  ecclesi- 
astical as  well  as  secular  matters  for  granted.  Never- 
theless, no  king  or  emperor  was  more  lavish  in  the 
privileges  he  allowed  to  the  Church  than  he.  Secure  in 
the  strength  of  his  sword,  he  was  at  all  times  willing  to 
strengthen  his  own  hold  upon  his  people  by  sti'engthen- 
ing  the  Church,  through  whom  that  hold  was  in  part 
secured.  This  policy,  however  admirable  in  such  a 
monarch  as  Charlemagne,  proved  disastrous  to  his  feebler 
successors.  Louis  the  Debonair  was  deposed  by  eccle- 
siastical authority  ;  it  was  an  assembly  of  bishops  that 
divided  the  dominions  of  Lothair  between  Charles  the 
Bald  and  Louis  of  Bavaria ;  and  it  was  another  assembly 
of  bishops  that  handed  over  to  Louis  of  Bavaria  the 
kingdom  of  Charles  the  Bald.  The  ninth  century  has 
been  called  the  Age  of  the  Bishops,  as  the  twelfth  was 
that  of  the  Popes.  In  England,  as  on  the  Continent,  the 
bishops  assumed  control  of  secular  affairs.  It  was  the 
bishop  of  Winchester  presiding  as  Papal  Legate,  at  an 
assembly  of  the  clergy  in  1141,  who  arrogated  to  himself 
the  riglit  to  put  Matilda  on  the  throne ;  and  the  sub- 
mission of  King  Edwy  to  Archbishop  Otho  and  Saint 
Dunstan  sufficiently  testifies  to  the  power  of  the  bishop 
in  his  day. 

The  rise  of  the  Papal  power  has  been  too  often  and 
too  well  described  to  make  it  necessary  to  repeat  it  here. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  57 

The  gift  to  the  Holy  See  of  the  ex-archate  of  Ravenna, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  so-called  False  Decretals 
of  Isidore ;  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire to  Constantinople ;  the  recognition  of  the  Pope  by 
Charlemagne  as  the  power  from  which  the  imperial 
crown  was  derived;  the  frequent  and  successful  inter- 
ference of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  in  the  determination 
of  succession  to  the  crown;  the  exorbitant  power  of 
censorship. which  ultimately  grew  into  that  of  excommu- 
nication and  interdict ;  the  successful  use  of  these  in  such 
cases  as  that  of  Robert  of  France,  —  could  not  but  lift 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  above  the  other  bishops  of  the  world. 
But  such  power  as  that  exercised  by  him  inevitably 
resulted  in  abuse ;  the  conditions  which  raised  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  above  that  of  all  the  princes  of  the  earth  could 
not  fail  to  produce  their  results  throughout  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  system. 

It  would  be  indeed  amazing  if  a  condition  of  things 
which  within  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  deposed  six 
popes,  murdered  two  and  mutilated  one,  should  fail  to 
demoralise  those  who  derived  their  authority  and  ex- 
ample from  the  See  of  Rome ;  the  papal  authority  must 
have  been  weakened  by  the  fact  that  often  there  were 
at  the  same  time  two  and  sometimes  three  popes  in  the 
field ;  and  the  example  offered  by  popes  who  filled  their 
coffers  by  the  sale  of  episcopal  confirmations  and  of 
exemptions  to  monasteries  could  not  but  encourage  a 
similar  traffic  throughout  the  whole  hierarchy.  The 
crozier  was  no  longer  conferred  by  the  votes  of  the  laity, 
but  became  an  occasion  of  perpetual  conflict  between 
temporal  rulers  and  the  Pope ;  it  fell  to  him  who  had 
most  men-at-arms  at  his  back  or  most  money  in  his 
pocket;  a  child  of  five  years  old  sat  in  the  episcopal 
chair  of  Rheims ;  that  of  Narbonne  was  purchased  for 


58  INDIVIDUALISM 

another  ctiild  of  ten ;  vows  of  celibacy  were  habitually 
broken,  and  unchastity  became  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception.  Indeed,  the  corruption  during  this  period 
became  so  rank  and  universal  that  it  seems  difficult  to 
understand  how  the  Church  retained  its  hold  upon  the 
faith  of  men.  But  in  this  respect  the  condition  of  the 
Church  in  the  Middle  Ages  resembles  that  of  politics  in 
our  own ;  wherever  we  look  to-day  over  our  political 
field  we  seem  to  see  vice  triumphant,  and  yet,  as  has  been 
said  elsewhere,  it  is  astonishing  to  have  to  recognise  that 
the  worst  of  legislatures  often  enact  the  best  of  laws,  and 
that  the  best  of  laws  are  in  turn  handed  over  to  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  worst  of  public  officers.  The  reason 
of  this  will  be  discussed  in  its  proper  place,  but  it  may 
be  pointed  out  here  that  in  view  of  the  inherent  vice  of 
man  it  is  astonishing  how  virtuous  he  is ;  that,  in  other 
words,  although,  since  the  beginning  of  things,  he  has  been 
surrounded  by  conditions  which  tend  to  make  him  more 
and  more  evil,  he  has  as  a  matter  of  fact  been  becoming 
more  and  more  good.  And  just  as  in  our  own  day  govern- 
ment seems  to  be  in  the  hands  of  purely  self-seeking  politi- 
cians, and  just  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  Church  seems 
to  have  been  in  the  hands  of  a  purely  self-seeking  hie- 
rarchy, so  now,  as  then,  there  has  been  a  saving  force  in 
the  community  which  lias  preserved  the  wholesomeness 
of  both  Church  and  State  throughout  every  corrupting 
environment ;  this  saving  force  is  the  salt  which  keeps 
the  sea  wholesome,  though  the  sea  is  the  reservoir  into 
wliich  is  poured  all  that  is  corrupt  in  the  world ;  it  is 
the  vital  spark  which  keeps  our  heart  beating,  though 
without  us  and  within  us  teem  everywhere  the  seeds  of 
death.  Now,  this  view  of  the  plain  facts  which  confront 
us  everywhere  seems  clearly  to  indicate  the  direction 
our  stutlies  should  take :  is  tlicrc  salt  enough  to  take 
care  of  the  corruption  that  prevails  in  the  world?     Is 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  59 

there  vital  force  enough  to  save  the  soul  which  is  still 
struggling  for  the  mastery  in  the  lives  of  our  institu- 
tions and  ourselves? 

These  questions  resolve  themselves  into  two :  what  is 
the  strength  of  the  soul  in  us  and  what  is  the  strength 
of  the  corru]3ting  environment  ?  And  if  it  is  true  that 
the  environment  is  in  great  part  the  work  of  our  own 
hands,  then  the  inquiry  whetlier  this  work  is  of  a  charac- 
ter to  keep  alive  the  soul  in  us  or  to  lay  it  low  becomes 
altogether  the  most  important  inquiry  about  which  we 
can  at  all  be  engaged.  But  if  we  allow  ourselves  to  be 
hypnotised  by  the  power  of  mere  words ;  if,  because 
we  have  been  so  long-  accustomed  to  reg^ard  the  words 
"  Christian  Church "  as  involving  the  idea  that  the 
Church  has  remained  Christian,  we  are  unable  to  recog- 
nise the  undoubted  fact  that  the  Church  ceased  to  be 
Cliristian  ^  as  soon  as  it  became  converted  into  a  political 
machine,  we  are  unfitted  to  estimate  the  work  of  our 
own  hands,  and  therefore  incapable  of  correcting  it. 

And  the  importance  of  keeping  the  unchristian  char- 
acter of  the  Christian  Church  well  in  view  is  felt  the 
moment  we  inquire  into  the  reasons  wh}^  a  vigorous  and 
in  great  part  successful  effort  of  the  people  towards  self- 
government  marked  the  eleventh  and  succeeding  cen- 
turies throughout  the  whole  of  Europe. 

^  It  must  not  be  imagined  that  this  conception  of  the  Church  is  incon- 
sistent with  a  devoted  loyalty  to  it.  "VVe  cannot  be  held  responsible  for 
incidents  which  occurred  fifteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  but  we  can  be  held 
responsible  for  refusing  to  see  things  to-day  as  they  are,  because  it  is  in- 
convenient to  do  so.  If,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Church  is  to-day  a  party 
to  a  scheme  of  society  and  government  which  is  inconsistent  with  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ,  it  becomes  our  duty,  not  to  abandon  the  Church,  but  to 
use  all  the  power  of  the  Church  to  restore  society  and  government  to  com- 
pliance with  the  doctrine  we  profess.  There  is  no  organised  power  in  ex- 
istence to-day  so  potent  for  social  and  political  reform  as  the  Church, 
provided  only  those  in  control  over  it  will  open  their  eyes  to  the  truth  and 
courageously  act  in  conformity  to  it. 


60  INDIVIDUALISM 

§  3.  Decay  of  the  Religious  Idea  and  Growth  of 
THE  Idea  of  Individualist  Governrient 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  patience  and  submissiveness 
of  the  people  prior  to  the  eleventh  century :  the  habit  of 
submission  made  them  equally  responsive  to  the  call  to 
arms  of  their  feudal  lord,  or  to  the  call  to  church  of  their 
ecclesiastical  superiors  ;  but  the  perplexity  and  injustice 
to  which  they  were  submitted  by  the  soldier  turned 
churchman  at  one  moment  and  the  churchman  turned 
soldier  at  another,  coupled  with  an  awakening  sense  of 
injury  at  the  hands  of  both  alternately,  found  an  oppor- 
tunity of  expression  in  the  eleventh  century  of  which 
those  who  furnished  the  opportunity  were  destined  to 
be  the  dupes.  There  is  probably  no  fact  in  history  more 
amazing  in  its  nature  or  more  powerful  in  its  results 
than  the  sudden  inoculation  of  Europe  by  a  religious 
frenzy  that  snatched  alike  the  baron  from  his  castle  and 
the  peasant  from  his  hut,  and  dashed  them  against  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  It  is  an  illustration  of  tlie  power 
of  the  religious  idea  to  which  suificient  reference  has 
already  been  made,  and  upon  which  it  is  unnecessary 
again  to  expatiate.  But  it  is  also  a  still  more  striking 
illustration  of  how  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  one  por- 
tion of  the  people  can  be  made  to  serve  the  selfish  inter- 
ests of  another.  The  extent  to  which  the  Church  profited 
materially  from  the  Crusades  has  often  been  pointed  out ; 
as,  for  example,  through  tlie  strengtli  she  gained  by  the 
drawing  away  from  Europe  of  the  turbulent  nobility  that 
contested  with  her  the  control  of  manorial  liefs  ;  throucrh 
tlie  property  she  acquired  from  this  very  nobility,  who 
in  borrowing  money  upon  their  estates  in  order  to  obey 
the  exhortations  of  the  Church,  permitted  the  Cliurch  to 
buy  in  these  estates  during  their  absence  in  the  Holy 
Land.    But  these  are  of  small  importance  to  the  political 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  61 

student  by  the  side  of  the  larger  fact  that  by  drafting 
away  from  Europe  at  the  same  time  the  religious  enthu- 
siasts who  made  the  people  subservient  to  the  Church  and 
the  rascally  barons  who  kejDt  the  people  in  terrified  sub- 
servience to  their  manorial  lords,  the  Crusades  left  be- 
hind them  a  population  that,  because  it  was  not  easily 
excited,  was  for  that  reason  more  capable  of  deliberate 
purpose,  and  because  it  was  no  longer  overawed  by  the 
force  of  arms  was  for  that  reason  capable  of  successful 
efforts  towards  self-government.  The  Crusades  furnish 
startling  evidence  of  the  power  of  the  Church  from  one 
point  of  view,  and  from  another  mark  the  period  of  her 
decline ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  they  killed  off  many  of 
her  devoutest  followers,  and  in  the  second  place  they 
furnished  an  opportunity  for  society  to  organise  upon 
purely  individualist  lines ;  and  this  kind  of  organisation 
is  not  consistent  with  blind  subservience  to  a  relisfious 
idea.  The  development  of  the  city  republics  in  Italy, 
of  the  communes  in  France,  of  the  German  towns  in 
the  Hanseatic  League,  and  of  the  borougks  in  England 
during  the  eleventh  and  succeeding  centuries  is  worthy 
of  a  moment's  thought. 

As  soon  as  the  strong  arm  of  Charlemagne  was  re- 
moved by  death  from  the  control  of  the  Empire,  the 
people  became  a  prey  to  the  conflict  between  rival  lords, 
—  sometimes  both  of  them  lay  lords,  — sometimes  one  lay 
and  the  other  ecclesiastical ;  it  would  be  difficult  to  say 
which  was  the  more  oppressive  of  the  two ;  for  while  the 
lay  domination  was  generally  the  more  violent,  the 
ecclesiastical  was  the  more  persistent;  and  in  England 
at  any  rate  it  is  clear  that  the  boroughs  found  it  more 
difficult  to  emancipate  themselves  from  the  tyranny  of 
church  communities  than  from  those  of  lay  lords ;  be- 
cause whereas  the  latter  were  apt  at  some  time  to  weaken 
through  the  weakness  of  one  of  their  line,  the  former, 


62  INDIVIDUALISM 

like  all  clerical  corporations,  had  behind  them  the  never- 
dying  traditions  and  organisation  of  the  Church.  Now 
it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  as  soon  as  the  first  Crusades 
had  drafted  off  to  Palestine  a  population  of  nearly  a 
million,  very  few  of  which  ever  returned,  we  find  efforts 
at  self-government  in  France  becoming  successful ;  the 
date  of  the  first  crusade  is  1096  to  1099 ;  and  it  is  between 
1100  and  1112  that  the  co7n'munes  jurees  were  formed  at 
Noyon,  Beauvais,  St.  Quentin,  and  Laon.  The  struggle 
had  indeed  begun  before:  the  burghers  of  Amiens, 
for  example,  had  allied  themselves  with  those  of  Corbie 
as  early  as  1025  with  a  view  to  putting  an  end  to  the 
perpetual  private  wars  which  by  dividing  them  kept 
them  under  the  yoke  of  their  manorial  lords ;  but  the 
very  terms  of  this  alliance  show  how  subject  to  their 
lords  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal  they  at  the  time  were. 
The  alliance  was  essentially  a  religious  one ;  it  provided 
for  an  annual  meeting  of  the  inhabitants  of  both  towns 
at  one  of  the  great  feasts  of  the  Church ;  for  a  procession 
in  which  were  to  be  carried  the  relics  of  their  saints ; 
for  solemn  oaths  taken  under  the  sanction  of  the  Church  ; 
and  for  a  licaring  of  all  mattei's  of  dispute  in  front  of 
the  cathedral  and  "in  the  presence  of  the  bishop  and 
the  count."  The  whole  story  of  the  struggle  of  Amiens 
for  self-government  is  typical  and  interesting :  the  town 
is  divided  as  to  matters  of  jurisdiction  between  the 
bishop  and  the  count,  —  the  one  having  jurisdiction  over 
tlie  cathedral  and  its  neighbourhood  and  the  other  having 
jurisdiction  over  iho  rest;  nor  is  the  authority  of  the 
king  unrepresented;  the  "castillon,"  a  veritable  citadel 
built  out  of  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  palace  and  succeeding 
to  its  traditions,  is  tlie  domain  of  the  king  and  tenanted 
by  liis  "chatelain,"  who  enjoys  the  title  of  "Prince  de 
la  CAt6 ; "  the  people  have  lost  their  rights ;  they  no 
longer  elect  their  bishops,  as  they  did  in  the  seventh 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  63 

centur}^,  or  their  judges  (scabini),  as  in  the  eighth;  on 
the  contrary,  the  right  to  judge  the  people  is  the  source 
of  perpetual  quarrels  between  the  bishop  and  the  count ; 
and  the  reason  why  this  privilege  is  prized  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  first  charter  which  an  alliance  between 
the  people  and  the  bishop  wrung  from  the  count,  for 
this  charter  provides  that  a  burgher  accused  of  theft 
shall  have  the  right  to  be  confronted  by  his  accuser  and 
his  witnesses,  and  shall  not,  after  having  been  fined  by 
one  of  the  judges  of  the  count,  be  rearrested  and  fined 
once  more  b}'  another  judge.  It  seemed  to  be  taken  for 
granted  as  a  manorial  right  which  it  was  impossible  to 
abolish,  that  the  burghers  should,  whenever  the  "  vidame  " 
was  in  need  of  money,  be  arrested  upon  a  trumped-up 
charge  of  theft  and  fined  without  trial ;  but  the  charter 
conceded  that  the  same  burgher  should  not  be  arrested 
and  fined  without  at  least  being  confronted  by  an  accuser, 
and  that  he  should  not  be  tried  for  the  same  offence  l^y 
as  many  vidames  as  the  count  chose  to  appoint  in 
Amiens  I  Such  were  the  abuses  and  such  the  pitiful 
measiu-e  of  relief  which  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury the  people  were  able  to  secure. 

But  as  soon  as  the  Crusades  had  drawn  away  much 
of  the  strength  of  the  nobility  and  some  of  the  weak- 
ness of  the  people,  we  see  Laon  engaged  in  a  furious 
campaign  against  the  bishop  and  the  king,  which  ended 
after  three  years  in  the  triumph  of  the  people  ;  and 
Amiens,  the  scene  of  a  no  less  bloody  conflict,  in  which 
at  one  time  the  town,  having  by  the  payment  of  a  large 
sum  of  money  purchased  a  charter  from  Louis  le  Gros, 
is  supported  by  both  the  king's  chatelain  and  the 
bishop  against  the  count ;  and  at  another,  deserted  by 
the  chatelain,  is  holding  its  own  against  both  count  and 
king.  We  see  the  town  securing  against  the  count  the 
alliance  of  his  own  son,  the  famous  or  rather  infamous 


64  INDIVIDUALISM 

Thomas  de  Marie  ;  we  see  this  same  Thomas  using  his 
alliance  with  the  town  in  order  to  secure  terms  with 
his  father  at  one  time,  and  at  another  deserting  the 
town  and  joining  the  ranks  of  the  count ;  we  see  the 
king,  fearing  the  strength  of  this  alliance,  joining  once 
more  the  town  and  the  bishop  ;  and  after  a  struggle 
of  four  years  deposing  the  count  (1117)  and  putting 
in  his  place  a  rival  claimant  in  the  person  of  Raoul  I. 
This  last  count  granted  to  Amiens  its  first  veritable 
charter. 

It  was  out  of  such  struggles  as  these  that  the  people 
gained  their  rights,  —  struggles  in  which  it  is  difficult  to 
trace  any  consistent  action  among  the  abusing  powers  ; 
for  if  in  one  town  we  find,  as  in  Amiens,  the  bishop 
supporting  the  people,  in  another,  as  in  Laon,  it  is  the 
bishop  who  is  fighting  the  people ;  and  if  in  one  the 
king  is  on  the  side  of  the  oppressed,  as  in  Amiens,  in 
another,  as  in  Laon,  he  is  on  the  side  of  the  oppressor. 
There  is  no  notion  of  justice  or  right ;  it  is  a  struggle 
of  selfishness  operating  sometimes  through  intrigue, 
sometimes  through  treachery,  and  always  with  violence 
and  the  shedding  of  blood. 

It  is  not  sur[)rising  that  under  these  conditions  the 
influence  of  faith  should  at  last  cease  to  be  paramount : 
we  can  see  it  dwindle  away  in  the  history  of  this  very 
town;  the  religious  character  of  the  alliance  between 
Amiens  and  Corl)ie  slowly  disappears;  the  relics  and 
the  clergy  no  longer  play  a  part  in  the  procession  ;  and 
prayer  is  replaced  by  dancing  and  kindred  diversions. 
Faith  could  not  long  survive  under  a  rdgime  as  de- 
structive to  it  as  that  which  prevailed  when  tlie  weak- 
ness of  the  successors  of  Charlemagne  tempted  the 
Church  to  join  in  the  general  scramble  for  political 
power  and  wealtli.  The  bishops  can  be  heard  saying, 
in  the  words  of  one  of  our  own  contemporaneous  states- 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  65 

men,  "  Why  should  not  we  too  play  for  our  legitimate 
share  of  the  great  stake  ?  "  ^  —  and  share  they  did,  not 
only  in  the  "  great  stake,"  but  also  in  the  degrading, 
the  bloody,  and  the  anti-Christian  scramble  for  it. 

The  influence  of  the  Crusades,  however,  in  bringing 
this  result  must  not  be  exaggerated ;  for  there  was 
another  factor  at  work  more  positive  in  its  action  and 
more  powerful  in  its  effect.  Whenever  a  devastating 
force  such  as  that  of  the  barbarians,  during  the  years 
which  ushered  in  the  Middle  Ages,  sweeps  over  history, 
we  observe  after  a  brief  spell  of  discouragement  a 
rejuvenescence  of  the  constructive  force  which  origin- 
ally created  the  civilisation  just  destroyed ;  this  re- 
juvenescence does  not  need  explanation ;  and  if  it  did, 
no  explanation  could  be  given ;  it  is  a  fact,  it  is  the 
fact  of  life,  as  to  the  cause  of  which  we  know  nothing, 
and  our  ignorance  regarding  which  we  all  often  illogi- 
cally  ignore.  Just  as  the  more  —  within  certain  limits 
—  we  cut  a  hedge,  the  more  it  grows  ;  the  more  we 
trim  a  tree,  the  more  it  blossoms  ;  the  more  we  destroy 
life,  the  more  life  teems,  —  so  within  similar  limits  the 
more  we  destroy  institutions,  the  more  vigorously  new 
institutions  spring  up  to  take  their  place.  But  this 
rejuvenescence  can  only  occur  within  certain  limits, 
and  it  is  the  art  of  the  statesman  as  of  the  gardener 
to  know  what  tliese  limits  are.  Let  us  give  to  this 
question  a  moment's  consideration. 

§  4.  Forces  at  Woek  in  the  Development  of 
THE  Idea  of  Individualist  Government 

The  crafty  minority  which  is  for  ever  seeking  to 
plunder    the    uncrafty    multitude   has    an   interest   in 

1  N,  Y.  "Times,"  January  28,  1898.  Plea  of  Charles  Emory  Smith 
for  the  annexation  of  Hawaii  by  the  United  States. 

5 


66  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  prosperity  of  its  prey ;  and  it  is  generally  when 
the  governing  minority  fails  to  understand  this  that  it 
is  overthrown.  The  Indian  tribes  were  as  careful  to 
preserve  the  herds  of  buffalo  upon  which  they  respec- 
tively depended  for  food  as  we  have  been  reckless  in 
destroying  them ;  Tammany  remains  in  power  in  New 
York  city  so  long  as  in  the  shearing  of  us  it  does  not 
cut  to  the  bone;  and  the  Church  preserved  her  authority 
over  her  flock  until  her  oppression  and  exactions  made 
it  less  intolerable  to  resist  than  to  submit  to  her.  What 
are  the  forces  at  work  in  this  singular  relation  between 
the  robber  and  the  robbed  ? 

The  food  of  the  buffalo  is  grass ;  the  food  of  the 
Indian  is  not  grass,  but  buffalo ;  in  this  case  the  robber 
and  the  robbed  do  not  compete  for  the  same  food ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  robber  has  an  interest  in  securing  the 
finest  pasture  for  his  pre}'.  If  the  herd  be  left  to  its 
natural  increase,  it  will  tend  to  grow  too  large  for  its 
food  supply ;  and  until  the  effect  of  the  insufficient 
supply  shall  either  have  occasioned  migration  to  other 
pastures  or  killed  off  the  weakest  members  of  the  herd, 
the  herd  will  suffer.  The  intelligent  killing  of  the 
members  of  the  herd  with  which  it  can  most  easily 
dispense,  such  as  the  conquered  bulls  and  the  barren 
cows,  will  feed  the  Indian  and  improve  the  herd  ;  the 
unintelligent  massacre  of  the  best-producing  bulls  and 
the  fertile  cows  will  not  furnish  better  food  to  the 
Indian,  but  will  end  by  impoverishing  his  supply. 

Here  we  have  in  its  inception  the  application  of  in- 
telligence to  the  predatory  system  ;  and  this  new  prin- 
ciple is  beneficent  to  both  the  predator  and  his  prey; 
it  secures  the  best  food  to  both. 

The  forces  at  work  are  threefold,  —  two  tliat  belong 
to  nature  and  one  that  belongs  to  art ;  the  two  that 
belong  to  nature  are,  first,  the  reproductive  force  of  the 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  67 

herd  which,  ceteris  paribus^  can  be  counted  upon  within 
certain  limits  to  replace  those  that  are  consumed  by  the 
carnivore ;  and,  secondly,  the  predatory  instinct  of  the 
carnivore.  The  force  that  belongs  to  art  is  the  intelli- 
jjence  which  understands  the  limits  within  which  the 
reproductive  force  of  nature  can  be  counted  on  and  the 
individuals  in  the  herd  upon  which  the  j)redatory  se- 
lection can  most  advantageously  be  exercised.  In  other 
words,  we  see  three  forces  confronting  one  another  : 
the  reproductive  force  of  nature  unexplained  and  in- 
explicable ;  the  natural  or  unintelligent  destruction 
exercised  by  the  carnivore,  which  is  wasteful  and  in- 
jurious ;  the  artistic  or  intelligent  selection  exercised 
by  man  and  involving  some  self-restraint,  which  is 
economical  and  beneficent  to  both. 

Government,  unenlightened  by  religion,  tends  to  be 
an  application  to  human  society  of  the  art  which  the 
Indian  applies  to  the  herd  of  buffaloes  ;  it  is  the  alli- 
ance of  selfish  intelligence,  or  craft,  with  the  natural 
predatory  instincts  of  man  in  the  intelligent  minority, 
for  the  purpose  of  preying,  to  the  greatest  advantage  to 
themselves,  upon  the  majority,  which  does  not  possess 
this  intelligence  to  the  same  degree. 

Another  new  element  introduced  by  man  into  society 
is  a  certain  conscious  and  more  or  less  deliberate  con- 
sent in  the  unintelligent  majority  to  the  beneficent  gov- 
ernment of  the  minority.  This  brings  into  play  and 
into  contrast  two  elements  in  the  unintelligent  minority : 
the  predominating  one,  which  is  natural,  and  is  common 
to  the  buffalo  herd,  —  namel}',  the  habit  of  submission  ; 
and  the  other,  which  is  non-natural,  and  only  inchoate 
in  the  herd,  —  namely,  deliberate  consent. 

Let  us  now  set  down  graphically  the  forces  here  in 
operation. 


68  INDIVIDUALISM 

UNCOXSCIOUS  CONSCIOUS 

FORCES  THAT  BELONG  TO  FORCES  THAT  RESULT  IN 

NATURE.  ART. 

In  the  Predator. 

Predatory  iustiuct.  Force   of  intelligent   recog- 

nition of  advantages  that 
result  from  self-restraint 
in  government. 

In  the  Prey. 

Force   of   reproduction    and  Force  of  intelligent  recogni- 

life.  tion    of   advantages   that 

Force  of  instinct  of  submis-  result  from  submission  to 

sion.  intelligent  government. 

With  the  forces  on  the  left  of  the  page  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  unconscious  forces  that  belong  to  nature  —  we 
have  become  familiar  in  our  study  of  the  predatory 
system  as  it  prevails  in  the  lower  animals.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  forces  on  the  right  of  the  page  —  that 
is  to  say,  the  conscious  forces  that  result  in  art  —  char- 
acterise human  society,  and  constitute  a  large  part  of 
the  characteristics  which  differentiate  societies  of  men 
from  societies  of  lower  animals.  We  cannot  too  much 
insist  upon  the  fact  that  the  forces  on  the  right  of  the 
page  —  that  is  to  say,  the  conscious  forces  that  result  in 
art  —  do  not  replace  those  on  the  left  of  the  page,  or 
the  unconscious  forces  that  belong  to  nature.  On  the 
contrary,  the  former  are  added  to  the  latter,  and  in 
different  periods  of  history  they  are  found  to  be  operat- 
ing in  different  proportions ;  for  example,  in  every 
period  in  which  civilisation  is  advancing,  the  conscious 
forces  that  result  in  art  prevail  over  the  unconscious 
forces  that  belong  to  nature ;  whereas  during  the 
periods  in  which  civilisation  is  in  decay  the  unconscious 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  69 

forces  that  belong  to  nature  prevail  over  the  conscious 
forces  that  result  in  art.  Thus,  in  the  periods  which  we 
have  already  briefly  studied/  during  which  Lycurgus 
was  establishing  a  quasi-community  in  Sparta,  or  Solon 
was  imposing  a  constitution  on  Athens,  or  Servius 
Tullius  was  creating  a  municipal  religion  in  Rome, 
there  were  operating  both  of  the  conscious  forces  on  the 
right  of  the  page.  There  was  on  the  part  of  those  who 
governed  a  recognition  that  only  by  self-restraint 
could  government  be  conducted  for  the  benefit  of  the 
governing  as  well  as  the  governed  classes ;  and  there 
was  amongst  those  who  were  governed  an  intelligent 
apprehension  of  the  benefits  which  intelligent  govern- 
ment could  secure  from  their  submission  ;  but  the  play 
of  these  forces  in  no  way  prevented  the  operation  at  the 
same  time  of  the  unconscious  forces  that  belong  to 
nature ;  for  although  there  was  doubtless  an  intelligent 
apprehension  of  the  advantages  that  result  from  sub- 
mission in  the  multitude,  it  is  probable  that  the  natural 
habit  of  submission  was  by  far  the  greater  force ;  and 
although  a  few  such  men  as  the  law-makers  above 
referred  to  undoubtedly  entertained  an  intelligent  ap- 
prehension of  the  necessity  of  self-restraint  in  the  gov- 
erning classes,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  but  that  a 
vast  majority  of  the  governing  classes  was  animated  by 
the  same  predatory  instinct  which  in  the  otter  destroys 
far  more  fish  than  it  can  consume. 

Now,  the  predominance  of  the  conscious  forces  over 
the  unconscious  forces  in  society,  or  that  of  the  uncon- 
scious forces  over  the  conscious  forces,  is  not  a  matter 
of  mere  accident,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  necessary 
result  of  conditions  which  succeed  one  another  as  cer- 
tainly as  night  succeeds  the  day,  or  day  succeeds  the 
night  again ;  and  the  operation  of  this  law  of  succession 

1  Vol.  i.  book  ii.  ch.  iv. 


70  INDIVIDUALISM 

is  due  to  the  fact  just  observed  that  the  unconscious 
forces  that  belong  to  nature,  and  the  conscious  forces 
that  result  in  art,  are  always  operating  at  the  same 
time  in  human  society,  though  in  different  degrees,  for 
as  soon  as  the  governing  classes  grow  prosperous, 
through  the  operation  of  self-restraint  on  their  part 
and  submission  on  the  part  of  the  governed,  they  tend  to 
be  rendered  by  this  prosperity  unfit  for  self-restraint; 
then  the  predatory  instinct  seizes  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  withdrawing  from  the  governed  of  the 
advantages  which  result  from  intelligent  government 
incites  the  governed  majority  to  rebellion,  and  incapaci- 
tates the  governing  minority  for  the  task  of  holding 
their  own.  If,  in  the  struggle  that  ensues,  the  governed 
majority  does  not  produce  intelligence  capable  of 
understanding  and  applying  the  doctrine  of  self-re- 
straint, the  result  is  anarchy.  Now,  anarchy  means  the 
absolute  domination  of  the  unconscious  forces  that 
belong  to  nature ;  ^  and  it  lasts  until,  out  of  the  anguish 
that  results  from  it,  there  is  restored  to  the  community 
the  willingness  to  exert  self-restraint  on  the  part  of  the 
intelligent  minority,  and  the  willingness  to  submit  on 
the  part  of  the  unintelligent  majority.  Then  the  game 
of  government  begins  again  only  to  repeat  the  story  of 
tyrann}^  and  its  punishment. 

This  is  a  well-worn  thenie,  and  is  illustrated  by  in- 
numerable instances  in  the  histories  of  all  tlie  towns  of 
Ancient  Greece,  of  Mediaeval  Italy,  and  of  our  own 
cities  in  the  United  States  ;  it  has  been  referred  to  here 
for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the  essential  character- 
istics which  distinguish  the  career  of  human  society 
from  that  of  the  lower  animals.     With  these  last  the 

^  It  may  be  contended  that  the  domination  of  conscious  forces  will 
also  in  a  perfect  state  result  in  anarchy.  This  may  be,  but  the  possibility 
of  such  a  consummation  is  too  remote  to  require  consideration  here. 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  71 

forces  at  work  are  all  automatic  and  indeliberate ; 
whereas  in  human  societies  there  is  the  added  element 
of  deliberate  self-restraint  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ing classes  and  deliberate  submission  on  the  part  of 
the  governed. 

But  we  have  here  considered  only  the  operation  of 
deliberate  purpose  unenlightened  or  uninspired  by  a  re- 
ligious idea.  The  political  effect  of  a  religious  idea  has 
already  been  discussed,  and  the  effort  has  been  made  to 
show  that  by  eliminating  the  distracting  effect  of  selfish- 
ness it  can  concentrate  the  otherwise  dissipated  forces  of 
individuals  and  create  a  socialising  force  of  unexampled 
power.  It  has  been  intimated  that  if  the  religious  idea 
be  as  enlightened  as  that  taught  by  Christ  and  be  not 
inconsistent  with  social  institutions,  it  might  serve  to 
break  up  the  vicious  circle  in  which  the  mere  play  of  self- 
ishness seems  to  keep  us.  We  are  not  yet  sufficiently 
advanced  in  our  historical  resume  to  proceed  with  this 
part  of  our  inquiry,  but  we  are  sufficiently  advanced 
in  it  to  recognise  just  where  religion  is  to  be  classed 
in  the  scheme  of  forces  at  work  in  society;  clearly,  to 
the  extent  to  which  it  is  unperverted  by  selfishness, 
it  belongs  to  the  right  of  our  page  —  that  is  to  say,  to 
tlie  conscious  forces  that  result  in  art;  and  clearly  it 
serves  to  enhance  the  tendency  of  the  governing  classes 
to  govern  for  the  benefit  of  tlie  governed,  and  of  the 
governed  classes  to  submit  to  the  powers  that  be. 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  force  of  religion  can  be 
abused,  and  tends  always  to  be  abused  by  the  crafty 
minority  who  are  pushed  by  selfishness  to  the  employ- 
ment of  every  weapon  useful  for  the  attainment  of  their 
end.  And  so  religion  tends  to  operate  in  the  vicious 
circle  very  much  as  intelligence  does  ;  that  is  to  say,  at 
one  period  they  both  induce  the  governing  minority  to 
govern  for  the  benefit  of  the  governed  and  induce  the 


72  INDIVIDUALISM 

governed  majority  to  submit  to  a  government  from 
which  they  benefit ;  while  at  a  subsequent  period,  when 
the  governing  minority  have  been  corrupted  by  the  en- 
joyment of  power,  and  rendered  unfit  thereby  for  the 
exercise  of  it,  the  spark  of  religion  left  burning  in  the 
hearts  of  the  multitude  arouses  its  latent  intelligence 
and  serves  to  kindle  the  torch  of  Reformation  and 
Revolt. 

It  might  seem  as  though  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn 
from  this  view  would  be  that  religion  offers  no  escape 
from  the  dreary  treadmill  of  democracy  and  despotism  ; 
but  upon  this  point  it  may  be  well  to  suspend  judgment 
until  we  have  brought  our  historical  r^sum^  down  to 
the  present  date. 

The  analysis  of  the  forces  at  work  in  human  society 
has  been  introduced  here,  because  it  seems  important  to 
distinguish,  by  the  aid  of  it,  the  development  of  local 
government  in  France  from  its  development  in  the  rest 
of  the  world. 

The  length  of  time  that  it  takes  a  kettle  to  boil 
depends  upon  two  things:  the  amount  of  heat  under 
the  kettle  and  the  weight  of  air  above  it.  Just  in  the 
same  way  the  length  of  time  that  it  takes  a  community 
to  organise  out  of  a  condition  of  anarchy  depends  upon 
two  things  :  the  vital  force  within  it,  and  the  hostile 
forces  without.  Organisation  then  can  be  encouraged 
in  two  ways  :  either  by  increase  of  the  force  within  or 
diminution  of  tlie  obstacles  without.  In  France  organ- 
isation was  helped  by  the  diminution  of  both  kinds  of 
obstacles, —  the  internal  obstacle,  arising  from  the  super- 
stitious submission  of  the  people ;  and  the  external 
obstacle,  arising  from  the  strength  of  the  oppressing 
manorial  lords.  Both  of  these  obstacles  were  diminished 
by  the  Crusades  ;  but  it  must  not  be  concliulcd  that  be- 
cause the  Crusades,  in  diminishing  these  obstacles,  per- 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  73 

mitted  the  organisation  of  the  communes,  therefore  the 
communes  would  not  have  come  into  existence  but  for  the 
Crusades.  This  is  neither  philosophically  probable  nor 
historically  true,  for  the  burghers  of  Mans,  profiting  by 
the  absence  in  England  of  William  the  Bastard,  revolted 
before  the  close  of  the  tenth  century,  and,  although  re- 
conquered by  William,  in  1073  secured  from  him  their 
municipal  franchises  ;  and  those  of  Cambrai  profited  by 
the  absence  of  their  bishop  at  the  imperial  court  as  early 
as  957,  and  in  spite  of  jaerpetual  defeats,  in  one  of  which 
the  Christian  prelate  cut  off  the  hands  and  feet  of  his 
prisoners  and  branded  them  upon  the  forehead,  they 
maintained  the  struggle  until  a  charter  was  conceded  to 
them  in  1076.  So  also  it  is  impossible  to  explain  by  the 
direct  action  of  the  Crusades  the  rise  of  city  republics  in 
Italy,  the  prosperity  of  the  Hanseatic  towns  in  the  north, 
and  the  growth  of  local  government  in  England.  These 
seem  all  of  them  due  to  the  division  and  struggle  for 
political  power  of  the  Crown,  the  Noble,  and  the  Church, 
during  the  course  of  which  the  burghers  secured  the  lib- 
erties which  otherwise  would  longer  have  been  denied 
them.  But  the  conditions  of  the  struggle  are  by  no 
means  the  same,  and  in  their  variety  is  much  instruc- 
tion. In  Italy  the  conflict  of  the  German  Emperor 
with  the  Pope  was  doubtless  the  occasion  which  per- 
mitted the  burghers  first  to  drive  the  nobles  out  of  their 
cities,  and  later  to  compel  their  residing  within  them ; 
but  the  Italian  cities  would  hardly  have  maintained 
their  struggle  with  the  nobility  as  long  and  as  success- 
fully as  they  did,  were  it  not  for  the  re-entrance  upon 
the  scenes  of  the  familiar  but  for  some  centuries  eclipsed 
factor, —  the  factor  of  wealth.  And  here  we  come  once 
more  upon  the  influence  of  the  Crusades,  indirect  in  this 
instance,  but  none  the  less  potent ;  for  it  was  the  Cru- 
sades that  opened  up  the  trade  with  the  East ;  it  was 


74  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  trade  of  the  East  that  poured  wealth  into  Italy  and 
raised  within  its  cities  a  class  of  rich  merchants  capable 
not  only  of  successfully  resisting  but  actually  of  con- 
quering their  old  manorial  lords ;  it  was  this  wealth 
which,  seeking  new  markets,  crept  along  the  valley 
of  the  Rhine,  and,  feeling  the  need  of  protection  from 
the  robber  barons  who  occupied  its  banks  and  levied 
prohibitory  tariffs  on  its  traffic,  grouped  together  the 
cities  interested  in  this  trade  into  a  league  that  for  some 
centuries  was  one  of  the  most  important  political  factors 
in  Europe.  The  Hanseatic  League  maintained  its  power 
until  the  general  use  of  the  mariner's  compass,  by  per- 
mitting trade  to  pass  through  and  beyond  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar,  transferred  political  power  from  the  forces  of 
the  land  to  those  of  the  sea;  created  great  maritime 
nations,  such  as  Holland,  Spain,  and  Great  Britain,  and 
set  the  soldier  below  the  merchant  by  making  the  one 
the  servant  of  the  other.  From  this  moment  the  his- 
tory of  Europe  becomes  the  history  of  its  trade ;  violence 
yields  more  and  more  to  diplomacy;  and  men  fight  less 
for  honour  and  more  for  wealth.  This  is  the  period 
during  which  militarism  yields  to  industrialism ;  and  in 
view  of  the  eulogy  of  industrialism  which  has  for  the 
last  hundred  years  served  as  the  constant  theme  of  poli- 
tical economists  and  political  philosophers,  it  is  a  matter 
of  no  small  moment  for  us  to  pause  awhile  and  consider 
just  what  this  conversion  is  and  what  it  has  effected. 

But  in  order  to  make  the  comparison  a  sufficient  one 
it  may  be  well  to  close  our  study  of  the  age  of  militarism 
by  describing  one  of  its  more  characteric  manifestations, 
—  one  which  brought  the  profession  of  the  soldier  to  its 
loftiest  ideal,  and  degraded  it  at  last  to  its  basest  pur- 
pose, —  the  so-called  institution  of  chivalr}'-. 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  75 

§  5.   The  Idea  of  Chivalry 

If  there  is  any  one  quality  which  distinguishes  the 
military  spirit  from  the  commercial  it  is  —  generosity. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  there  is 
room  for  generosity  in  warfare,  but  there  is  little  room 
for  it  in  commerce.  Assuredly,  we  have  seen  it  but  little 
exercised  in  the  one,  whereas  we  have  often  seen  it  aui- 
matinor  and  restraininsr  the  other.  The  successful  Lanark 
manufacturer  who  endeavoured  to  introduce  it  into  his 
business  died  poor  and  discouraged ;  and  those  manu- 
facturers who  have  succeeded  along  the  lines  of  benevo- 
lence have  done  so  only  because  they  knew  the  limits 
within  which  it  paid.  When  it  ceases  to  pay,  it  has  to 
be  abandoned ;  and  the  essential  feature  of  the  competi- 
tive system  is  that  in  the  end  competition  will  at  last 
reduce  benevolence  to  a  point  where  it  will  no  longer 
pay.      Then  it  has  to  go  to  the  wall. 

Now,  although  warfare  is  the  condition  of  brutes  rather 
than  of  men,  it  has  the  advantage  over  industrialism 
that  it  encourages  two  virtues  which  are  conspicuous  by 
their  absence  from  the  latter,  —  generosity  and  courage  ; 
and  it  is  the  enemy  of  one  vice  which  we  have  already 
described  as  the  peculiar  fruit  of  perverted  Christianity, 
—  hypocrisy. 

Generosity  particularly  characterises  the  mythology 
of  the  north ;  with  Norman  pirates  it  was  a  matter  of 
honour  not  to  fight  with  weapons  that  could  destroy  at  a 
distance  and  not  to  attack  an  enemy  inferior  in  numbers 
to  themselves  ;  it  was  consistent  with  this  barbaric  sense 
of  self-respect  that  they  refrained  for  twenty-four  hours 
from  dressing  their  wounds,  and  never  would  lower  a 
sail  because  of  a  storm.  This  is  the  spirit  that  underlies 
chivalry  and  finds  expression  in  the  maxim  noblesse  oblige  ; 
and  this  is  the  spirit  which  developed  the  four  cardinal 


76  INDIVIDUALISM 

virtues  of  chivalry,  —  generosity  and  gentleness,  loyalty 
and  courage.  One  of  the  first  historical  characters  in 
whom  we  find  these  qualities  conspicuously  united  was 
William  of  the  Iron  Arm,  the  Norman  count  of  Apulia, 
and  succeeding  him  came  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  the 
Black  Prince,  Guesclin,  and  Bayard.  If  we  go  to 
literature  for  an  account  of  chivalry,  we  shall  find 
its  ideal  personated  in  Arthur,  Lancelot,  Amadis  of 
Gaul,  and  Palmerin  of  England;  and  whether  in  his- 
tory or  in  literature  we  shall  be  struck  by  conflicting 
inconsistencies  which  make  it  difficult  to  decide  whether 
chivalry  was  a  very  good  thing  or  a  very  bad.  How 
divided  our  modern  authors  are  upon  this  point  may  be 
gathered  from  the  very  opposite  accounts  of  it  which  we 
owe  to  Edmund  Burke  and  Professor  Freeman.  Burke 
says :  — 

"  Never,  never  more  shall  we  behold  the  generous  loyalty 
of  rank  and  sex,  that  proud  submission,  that  dignified  obe- 
dience, that  subordination  of  the  heart  which  kept  alive  even 
in  servitude  itself  the  spirit  of  an  exalted  freedom ; "  and, 
he  adds,  "  that  sensibility  of  principle,  that  chastity  of  hon- 
our which  felt  a  stain  like  a  wound,  which  inspired  courage 
whilst  it  mitigated  ferocity,  which  ennobled  whatever  it 
touched,  and  under  which  vice  itself  lost  half  its  evil  by 
losing  all  its  grossness." 

Freeman  says :  — 

**The  chivalrous  spirit  is  above  all  things  a  class  spirit. 
The  good  knight  is  bound  to  endless  fantastic  courtesies 
towards  men,  and  still  more  towards  women  of  a  certain 
rank ;  he  may  treat  all  below  that  rank  with  any  degree  of 
scorn  and  cruelty.  The  spirit  of  chivalry  implies  the  arbi- 
trary choice  of  one  or  two  virtues  to  be  practised  in  such 
an  exaggerated  degree  as  to  become  vices,  while  the  ordi- 
nary laws  of  right  and  wrong  are  forgotten.  The  false  code 
of  honour  supplants  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  law 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  77 

of  God,  and  the  eternal  principles  of  right.  Chivalry  again 
in  its  military  aspect  not  only  encourages  the  love  of  war 
for  its  own  sake  without  regard  to  the  cause  for  which  war 
is  waged,  it  encourages  also  an  extravagant  regard  for  a 
fantastic  show  of  personal  daring  which  cannot  in  any  way 
advance  the  objects  of  the  siege  or  campaign  which  is  going 
on.  Chivalry,  in  short,  is  in  morals  very  much  what  feu- 
dalism is  in  law  :  each  substitutes  purely  personal  obliga- 
tions —  obligations  devised  in  the  interests  of  an  exclusive 
class  —  for  the  more  homely  duties  of  an  honest  man  and  a 
good  citizen." 

The  divergence  of  opinion  of  two  such  authorities 
stimulates  the  inquiry  which  of  these  two  men  is  right, 
and  how,  if  at  all,  can  they  be  reconciled ;  and  if  we 
follow  out  the  line  of  argument  which  has  been  already 
followed  in  tracing  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the 
State,  we  shall,  I  think,  find  the  explanation  of  this 
divergence  and  perhaps  its  reconciliation  in  a  similar 
relation  between  the  Church  and  knighthood. 

Just  as  there  was  and  is  still  an  irreconcilable  incon- 
sistency between  the  Church  and  the  institutions  of  the 
ancient  and  modern  State,  so  there  was  and  must  always 
be  an  irreconcilable  inconsistency  between  the  gospel 
of  peace  and  the  profession  of  violence;  the  Church 
may  bolster  the  State  for  a  time,  but  in  the  end  the 
State  will  drag  the  Church  down ;  the  Church  may  miti- 
gate the  horrors  of  war,  but  in  countenancing  them  she 
is  to  herself  untrue ;  and  if  she  raises  the  ideal  of  the 
soldier  she  does  so  at  the  fatal  price  of  her  own  sincer- 
ity. Let  us  look  at  the  facts,  and  see  how  far  they 
support  this  argument. 

If  we  are  to  believe  Sybel,  the  period  which  immedi- 
ately preceded  the  Crusades  was  as  wretched  as  any  re- 
corded in  history.  It  was  in  a  desperate  effort  to  put 
an  end  to  this  barbarism  that  there  was  instituted  about 


78  INDIVIDUALISM 

1041  the  Truce  of  God,  by  virtue  of  wliich  private  war 
was  subjected  to  limitations  of  time  and  place,  and  every 
church  was  converted  into  a  sanctuary,  into  which  it  was 
sacrilege  for  private  war  to  penetrate.  But  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  even  the  solemn  censure  pronounced  against 
the  license  of  private  war  by  the  council  of  Clermont  in 
1095  would  have  proved  effectual  in  arresting  it  had 
the  turbulent  element  in  which  it  flourished  not  been 
drawn  off  to  Palestine  by  the  Crusades  and  educated 
there  in  a  new  school  animated  by  something  of  a  Chris- 
tian spirit.  In  preaching  the  Crusades,  although  the 
Church  undertook  the  impossible  task  of  inspiring  the 
soldier  with  the  spirit  of  Christ,  she  accomplished 
the  very  practical  result  of  reviving  in  the  soldier  of 
the  eleventh  century  something  of  the  generosity  which 
characterised  the  pirate  of  the  eighth.  The  conception 
of  knighthood  which  resulted  from  this  undertaking  can 
best  be  understood  by  referring  to  the  accounts  given 
of  it  by  contemporaneous  poets  and  to  the  system  of 
education  by  which  it  was  inculcated.  Chaucer  describes 
a  knight  in  this  fashion :  — 

"  And  ever  more  he  had  a  sovereign  prize,^ 
And  thoup;h  that  he  was  worthy  he  was  wise, 
And  of  his  port  as  meek  as  is  a  maid, 
He  never  yet  no  villany  ne  said 
In  all  his  life  unto  no  manner  wight. 
He  was  a  very  perfect  gentle  knight." 

And  Sir  Thomas  Malory  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Sir 
Ector  this  eulogy  of  him  who  was  betrayed  by  love  into 
treachery  to  his  friend  and  king :  — 

" '  Ah,  Launcelot,'  he  said,  'thou  were  head  of  all  Christian 
knights !  And  now,  I  dare  say,'  said  Sir  Ector,  '  thou,  Sir 
Launcelot,  there  thou  liest,  that  thou  were  never  matched 
of  earthly  knight's  hands ;  and  thou  were  the  courtliest 

^  Praise. 


INDIVIDUALISM   IN   HISTORY  79 

knight  that  ever  bare  shield ;  and  thou  were  the  truest 
friend  to  thy  lover  that  ever  bestrode  horse ;  and  thou  were 
the  truest  lover,  of  a  sinful  man,  that  ever  loved  woman ; 
and  thou  were  the  kindest  man  that  ever  strake  with 
sword;  and  thou  were  the  goodliest  person  ever  came 
among  press  of  knights ;  and  thou  were  the  meekest  man 
and  the  gentlest  that  ever  ate  in  hall  among  ladies ;  and 
thou  were  the  sternest  knight  to  thy  mortal  foe  that  ever 
put  spear  in  the  rest. ' " 

The  generosity  and  the  gentleness  Chivalry  borrowed 
from  Christ ;  but  the  loyalty  has  across  it  a  bar  sinister. 

And  yet  chastity  was  one  of  the  virtues  demanded  of 
the  true  knight. 

"  To  love  one  maiden  and  to  cleave  to  her "  is  the 
law  of  the  Round  Table  ;  and  Milton,  in  writing  of  the 
lofty  "  fables  and  romances  "  of  knighthood,  says :  "  I 
learned  what  a  noble  virtue  chastity  sure  must  be,  to 
the  defence  of  which  so  many  worthies,  by  such  a  dear 
adventure  of  themselves,  had  sworn."  And  assuredly 
the  story  of  Amadis  Nicolse  and  Nicoleth  are  in  this 
respect  jewels  of  the  purest  water,  and  justify  the  lines 
of  Spenser,  — 

"  For  unto  knight  there  is  no  greater  shame 
Than  lightness  and  inconstancy  in  love." 

So  also  in  the  education  of  youth  during  those  days, 
to  borrow  the  words  of  Ben  Jonson,  — 

"  Every  house  became  an  academy  of  honour." 

At  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  years  the  boy  or  damoi- 
seau  becomes  the  constant  attendant  of  his  master  and 
his  mistress.  He  accompanies  the  one  to  the  chase,  and 
serves  the  other  in  her  chamber.  From  the  one  he 
learns  the  use  of  weapons  in  the  hunt,  from  the  other 
the  rudiments  of  religion,  of  rectitude,  and  of  love.  At 
the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  he  becomes  a  squire,  but 


80  INDIVIDUALISM 

generally  remains  the  personal  attendant  of  the  same 
master  and  the  same  mistress.  He  is  gradually  accus- 
tomed, however,  to  military  exercises  and  sports  involv- 
ing hardship.  He  is  expected  to  choose  his  lady  love,  to 
worship  her  with  reverence  and  in  secret.  Gradually 
his  duties  in  his  lady's  chamber  diminish  and  those  in 
the  field  increase ;  he  becomes  the  armiger  of  his  lord, 
and  learns  loyalty  and  courage  in  the  defence  of  liim 
against  the  enemy.  After  six  or  seven  years  of  such 
service  in  the  field  he  becomes  a  candidate  for  knight- 
hood. This  knighthood  is  conferred  by  accolade,  after 
the  performance  of  some  knightly  deed  by  virtue  of 
which  he  becomes  "chevalier  au  nom  de  Dieu  et  de 
mon  seigneur  St.  George  pour  la  foy  et  justice  loyale- 
ment  garder  et  I'^glise,  femes,  vesves,  et  orphelins  de- 
fender ;  "  or  he  is  knighted  with  the  religious  ceremonies 
that  are  beautifully  pictured  in  the  frescoes  of  the  Boston 
Library.  Placed  under  the  care  of  two  "  esquires  of 
honour,  grave  and  well  seen  in  courtship  and  nurture, 
and  also  in  the  feats  of  chivalry,"  he  is,  after  due  in- 
struction, placed  in  the  bath,  —  a  ceremony  which  re- 
minds us  of  the  lustrations  of  Ancient  Rome  and  of  the 
baptism  of  the  Christian  Church.  Before  he  withdraws 
from  the  bath  the  sign  of  the  cross  is  imprinted  upon 
his  shoulder ;  he  is  then  clothed  in  a  white  shirt,  and 
over  it  is  placed  a  "  robe  of  russet,  like  unto  that  of  an 
hermit."  He  is  escorted  by  two  "  ancient  and  grave 
knights  "  and  preceded  by  the  sporting  and  dancing  of 
minstrels  making  melody.  But  he  does  not  yet  share  in 
the  festival.  He  has  still  before  him  the  vigil  of  arms 
until  sunrise.  After  a  night  of  prayer  he  confesses  to 
the  priest,  hears  matins,  takes  the  holy  sacrament,  and 
consecrates  a  taper  "  to  the  honour  of  God  and  to  the 
person  that  makes  him  a  knight."  He  is  then  dressed 
in  the  garments  of  a  knight,  and  his  future  squire  rides 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  81 

in  front  of  him  bearing  his  sword  by  the  point  in  its 
scabbard  and  his  spurs  hanging  from  its  hilt.  When  he 
reaches  the  baronial  hall  the  most  noble  and  gentle 
knight  present  fastens  the  right  spur  to  his  right  heel, 
signing  the  candidate's  knee  with  the  sign  of  the  cross ; 
in  like  manner  another  noble  and  gentle  knight  fastens 
the  left  spur  to  his  left  heel ;  then  he  who  is  to  create 
the  knight  girds  the  sword  about  the  youth,  who,  laying 
his  right  hand  on  the  altar,  promises  to  support  and  de- 
fend the  Church,  and,  ungirding  his  sword,  offers  it  to 
God.  Then  are  pronounced  the  solemn  words,  "  If  you 
do  anything  contrary  to  the  order  of  Chivalry  (which 
God  forbid),  I  shall  hack  the  spurs  from  your  heels." 

So  much  had  this  ceremony  become  one  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  Church,  that  the  form  for  the  presenting  or 
consecration  of  new  knights  is  included  in  the  Pontifi- 
cale  Roman um  and  the  Manual  of  Common  Prayer 
in  use  in  England  before  the  Reformation. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  this  education 
attempted  to  wed  the  virtues  of  the  man  of  peace  to 
those  of  a  man  of  war ;  it  has  still  to  be  pointed  out 
that  it  substituted  for  the  love  of  God  the  love  of 
woman. 

Both  of  these  attempts  had  their  good  and  their  evil 
consequences :  they  introduced  humanity  into  warfare  ; 
but  by  making  warfare  humane  they  made  it  meritorious  ; 
they  raised  the  ideal  of  womanhood;  but  in  lifting 
woman  upon  the  altar  they  withdrew  from  it  the  wor- 
ship of  God.  One  thing,  however,  they  did  in  some 
measure  accomplish :  they  diminislied  the  practice  of 
hypocrisy  by  eliminating  the  temptation  to  it.  The 
knight  could  boldly  and  without  insincerity  practise 
what  he  preached ;  not  so  the  Church,  however,  which 
became  the  sanction  for  violence  as  well  as  poverty  of 

G 


82  INDIVIDUALISM 

spirit,  and  in  preaching  the  virtue  of  one  to  the  feudal 
lord  it  enjoined  the  necessity  of  the  other  on  the  unre- 
generate  Turk.  And  the  love  of  Christ,  which  had 
ceased  any  longer  to  animate  the  Christian  heart,  was 
replaced  by  that  for  a  woman,  whose  chastity  it  became 
a  privilege  for  the  knight  to  warrant  and  defend.  It 
was  the  comparative  sincerity  of  this  new  religion  which 
in  great  part  made  its  strength ;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
read  ancient  chronicles  without  glowing  with  sympathy 
for  men  who  court  danger  rather  than  avoid  it  and  with- 
out reverence  for  the  women  whose  lofty  standards  in- 
spired such  "dear  adventure." 

§  6.   Decay  of  the  Idea  of  Chr^alry 

But  it  is  the  doom  of  man  to  suffer  the  necessary 
consequence  of  every  inconsistency ;  and  this  futile 
attempt  to  square  religion  with  institutions  instead  of 
squaring  institutions  with  religion  resulted  in  two  codes 
to  which  we  cannot  attach  too  much  importance :  the 
code  of  honour  and  the  code  of  lov^e. 

(a )    TJie  Code  of  Love 

This  code  is  a  digest  of  the  decisions  of  the  Cours 
d' Amour,  or  courts  held  by  ladies  of  noble  birth,  before 
whom  subtle  questions  of  gallantry  were  argued  from 
the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth  centuries.  It  is  some- 
times stated  that  these  courts  were  confined  to  Prov- 
ence ;  but  this  is  a  mistake,  for  the  royal  chaplain,  Andr^, 
who  lived  about  1170,  cites  amongst  the  cours  d'amour 
that  existed  at  his  day  that  of  the  ladies  of  Gascony, 
that  of  Ermengarde,  Vicomtesse  de  Narbonne,  that  of 
Queen  Eleanor,  of  the  Countess  of  Flanders,  of  the 
Countess  of  Champagne;  and  Jean  de  Nostradamus 
speaks  also  of  those  which  sat  at  Signe,  Pigne,  Pierre- 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN   HISTORY  83 

fen,  Romanin,  and  Avignon.  The  decisions  of  these 
courts  are  rendered  in  the  form  customary  in  courts 
of  law,  and  amongst  the  most  important  of  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  by  them  may  be  quoted  the  following : 

"  He  knows  not  how  to  love  who  knows  not  how  to  con- 
ceal it. 

"  It  is  not  lawful  to  yield  to  more  than  to  one  love. 

"  What  a  lover  takes  from  his  love  by  force  is  worthless. 

"  No  lover  bereaved  of  his  love  by  death  may  love  again 
during  the  period  of  two  years. 

"  None  may  love  except  there  be  hope  of  being  loved. 

"  Love  divulged  is  brief. 

"Too  easy  conquest  robs  love  of  its  charm;  obstacles 
enhance  it. 

"Love  grows  with  suspicion  and  jealousy. 

"  Excess  of  pleasure  prevents  the  birth  of  love. 

"  It  is  not  lawful  that  one  woman  be  loved  by  two  men 
or  one  man  by  two  women. 

"  Love  ccmnot  exist  between  husband  and  wife.^^ 

This  code  needs  no  comment ;  we  are  doubtless  ac- 
customed to  see  the  principles  therein  laid  down  prac- 
tised in  the  lives  of  those  about  us  and  preached  in 
almost  every  page  of  our  contemporaneous  romantic 
literature ;  but  we  are  likely  to  regard  this  fact  as  the 
price  we  have  to  pay  for  perhaps  the  best  of  our  insti- 
tutions, —  marriage ;  and  we  may  find  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  they  could  be  to-day,  or  could  ever  have 
been,  set  down  deliberately  as  rules  of  morality  and 
action.  Those  who  still  think  that  there  is  any  limit 
to  the  inconsistency  of  mankind  may  well  compare  this 
code  with  the  virtues  of  loyalty  and  courage  that  were 
professed  by  those  who  drew  it  up,  and  may  well  seek 
to  reconcile  these  virtues  with  the  treachery,  adultery, 
and  intrigue  which  it  encourages  and  even  enjoins. 

The  fact  is  that  we  tend  to  take  out  of  our  environ- 


84  INDIVIDUALISM 

ment  what  our  temperaments  find  therein  suited  to  us, 
—  the  courageous  its  courage,  the  chaste  its  chastity,  the 
loyal  its  truth;  and  at  different  periods  in  our  lives 
we  respond  to  virtue  or  to  vice  according  as  conditions 
have  tuned  us  to  one  or  the  other.  So  long,  therefore,  as 
the  environment  suggests  to  us  vice  as  well  as  virtue, 
hypocrisy  as  well  as  truth,  unchastity  as  well  as 
chastity,  we  shall  be  a  great  deal  at  the  mercy  of  acci- 
dent in  our  choice  between  them.  The  great  question 
for  the  political  student  is  to  consider  how  far,  if  at  all, 
our  social  and  political  institutions  may  be  made  to 
suggest  noble  qualities  rather  than  ignoble  ones ;  and 
how  far,  if  at  all,  man  may  be  still  capable  not  only  of 
framing  institutions  that  will  ennoble  him,  but  of  living 
up  to  them  when  framed. 

In  chivalry  we  see  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Church 
to  ennoble  the  soldier  by  bringing  religion  down  to  his 
level;  and  we  find  the  soldier  dragging  religion  down 
with  him  inevitably,  though  not  without  much  grace  and 
picturesqueness,  to  the  abyss.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
by  some  this  effort,  in  spite  of  its  momentary  success,  is 
condemned  rather  than  justified  ;  for  it  may  be  better  to 
keep  war  savage  and  barbaric  than,  by  mitigating  its 
cruelty,  contribute  to  the  enthronement  of  wantonness 
and  falsehood.  Chivalry  cannot  be  justified  by  the 
occasional  examples  of  courage  and  mercy  which  it  has 
produced ;  undoubtedly  the  lofty  ideals  set  up  by  chiv- 
alry did  stimulate  the  development  of  a  noble  type  of 
courage :  when  the  Black  Prince,  hard  pressed  at  Cr^cy, 
was  told  that  his  father  the  king  refused  him  reinforce- 
ments, —  "  for  if  God  be  pleased,  I  vnW  this  day's  work  be 
his  and  the  honour  thereof,"  —  the  chronicle  tells  us  he 
was  "  greatly  encouraged "  by  these  words,  with  what 
conseciuence  we  know;  undoubtedly,  too,  the  role  of  the 
woman  was  enhanced  by  chivalry ;   Edward  III.  turned 


INDIVIDUALISM  IN  HISTORY  85 

a  deaf  ear  to  the  entreaties  of  his  own  officers  for  the 
burghers  of  Calais  ;  in  vain  did  Sir  Walter  of  Marmy 
protest,  "  For  God's  sake  refrain  your  courage ;  ye  have 
the  name  of  sovereign  noblesse  ;  therefore  now  do  not  a 
thing  that  should  blemish  your  renown,  nor  give  cause 
to  some  to  speak  villainy ;  every  man  will  say  it  is  a 
great  cruelty  to  put  to  death  such  honest  persons,  who 
by  their  own  wills  put  themselves  at  your  grace  to  save 
their  company."  In  answer  to  Sir  Walter  the  king 
sent  for  the  hangman ;  but  when  his  Queen  Philippa 
pleaded,  he  spared  them,  saying  :  "  Ah,  dame,  I  would 
you  had  been  as  now  in  some  other  place  ;  ye  make  such 
request  to  me  that  I  cannot  deny  you." 

But  these  shining  exceptions  cannot  counterbalance 
the  sreneral  demoralisation  which  deserved  the  strictures 
of  Professor  Freeman  ;  and  a  state  of  society  for  which 
marriage  was  but  a  screen  for  adultery  must,  under  the 
application  of  a  law  already  laid  down,  either  perish  or 
yield  to  one  in  which  marriage  became  once  more  the 
consummation  of  love,  and  not  its  tomb.  This  was  the 
stride  taken  by  civilisation  in  moving  from  Malory  to 
Shakespeare. 

(b)  The  Code  of  Honour 

The  Code  of  Honour  —  that  other  fruit  of  chivalry  — 
is  as  pregnant  with  inconsistency  as  the  Code  of  Love 
which  we  have  just  been  considering.  Without  enter- 
ing into  the  phases  through  which  it  passed,  it  is 
sufficient  for  our  purposes  to  point  out  two  of  its  most 
characteristic   features. 

In  the  first  place,  it  introduced  the  notion  of  class  into 
morality,  so  that  conduct  which  was  permissible  on  the 
part  of  a  member  of  one  class  to  a  member  of  another 
became  a  crime  between  members  of  the  same  class. 
For   example,  a  gentleman  who   failed  to   pay  a   debt 


86  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  another  gentleman  would  be  declasse;  whereas  a 
gentleman  who  failed  to  pay  his  tailor's  bill  was  regarded 
as  rather  a  dashing  fellow.  The  Code  of  Honour  was 
binding  only  upon  gentlemen ;  and  in  the  age  of  chiv- 
alry gentlemen  included  only  those  entitled  to  armorial 
bearings. 

In  the  second  place,  it  referred  questions  of  morality 
to  the  sword ;  so  that  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  slight- 
est error  of  politeness,  if  committed  by  an  unskilful 
swordsman,  was  punishable  by  death,  no  crime  was  too 
base  for  condonation  provided  it  was  defended  by  a 
skilful   foil. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  amazing  contradictions  into 
which  man  has  been  led  by  the  surrender  of  his  institu- 
tions to  haphazard  and  the  law  of  nature.  Through- 
out them  all  we  see  Religion,  like  an  "ineffectual  angel, 
beating  in  the  void  his  luminous  wings  in  vain."  The 
omnipotence  of  Allah,  the  love  of  Christ,  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  Crusades,  the  lofty  ideal  of  Chivalry,  —  all  become 
at  last  harnessed  to  the  service  of  private  ambition  and 
private  greed.  Nor  can  it  be  otherwise  so  long  as  these 
last  preside  at  the  framing  of  human  institutions ;  for 
whatever  be  the  environment,  to  that  environment  type 
must  either  perish  or  conform. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM  87 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    INSTRUMENT    OF    INDIVIDUALISM.— 
PRIVATE    PROPERTY 

We  have  seen  the  Christian  Church,  bred  and  beau- 
tiful in  poverty,  suddenly  lifted  into  wealth  by  a  sort  of 
morganatic  marriage  with  the  Roman  Emperor;  we  have 
seen  her,  perverted  by  her  riches,  dispose  of  her  imperial 
consort  and  usurp  his  throne;  we  have  seen  her  draw 
the  sword  and  join  the  general  scramble  and  carnage  in 
the  struggle  for  political  power,  and  rule  the  rich  by 
superstition,  as  she  once  did  the  poor  by  faith.  But  in 
spite  of  her  betrayal  of  Christ,  we  have  seen  His  spirit 
kept  alive  in  communities  and  individuals  who  were 
either  removed  from  competition  by  their  calling  or  too 
holy  to  be  perverted  by  it.  Amongst  the  former  we 
have  distinguished  such  communities  as  those  of  Saint 
Vincent  of  Paul,  which,  pledged  to  the  ancient  vows  of 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience,  devoted  the  lives  of  its 
votaries  to  doing  good;  and  we  have  pointed  out  that 
womankind  was  to  a  great  measure  protected  from  the 
degrading  tendency  of  the  competitive  system.  It  is 
not  astonishing,  then,  that  chivalry  should  set  her  up  on 
the  altar  from  which  the  true  Christ  had  been  driven; 
nor  is  it  astonishing  that  this  new  cult  should  have 
resulted  in  licentiousness.  When,  however,  we  see  the 
yearning  for  virtue  driven  from  the  Church,  seeking  its 
expression  in  such  an  institution  as  that  of  chivalry, 
only  to  result  there  in  immorality  and  crime,  we  should 


88  INDIVIDUALISM 

have  reason  to  be  discouraged  were  it  not  for  one 
patent  and  altogether  comforting  fact.  Ever  since  the 
perversion  of  the  Church  by  Constantino  man  has  been 
endeavouring  to  reconcile  Christianity  with  his  institu- 
tions instead  of  endeavouring  to  reconcile  his  institutions 
with  Christianity.  This  fundamental  inconsistency  is 
at  the  bottom  of  all  our  failures  in  the  years  that  are 
past;  and  so  long  as  it  remains  unrecognised  it  must 
continue  to  involve  us  in  failure  in  the  years  to  come. 
But  if  it  be  recognised,  and  if  our  institutions  are  capa- 
ble of  being  slowly  transformed  so  as  to  make  them  con- 
sistent with  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  then  the  necessary 
evils  which  result  from  the  artificial  environment  that 
we  have  created  for  ourselves  may  be  eliminated,  and 
we  shall  be  called  upon  to  endure  only  those  which 
nature  will  continue  to  impose  upon  us. 

For  we  cannot  bear  too  constantly  before  us  the  fact 
that  there  are  evils  in  nature  with  which  no  wisdom 
that  we  have  as  yet  attained  can  cope.  We  cannot,  for 
example,  hope  by  any  study  of  political  institutions  to 
find  a  way  for  making  all  men  and  women  equally  beau- 
tiful as  well  as  equally  good;  but  we  can  study  them 
with  a  view  to  finding  a  way  of  reducing  the  injustice 
of  nature  to  a  minimum ;  and,  above  all,  we  can  hope 
to  eliminate  those  evils  which  Man  in  his  struggle 
with  nature  has  by  defect  of  wisdom  created  for  himself. 
Now,  one  of  the  principal  products  of  human  ingenuity 
is  private  property ;  and  while  private  property  is  un- 
doubtedly from  one  point  of  view  a  blessing,  it  is  no 
less  surely  from  another  a  curse. 

The  study  of  this  questionable  gift  is  one  of  paramount 
importance,  not  only  in  its  effect  upon  our  institutions, 
but  in  its  effect  upon  our  character;  for  upon  character 
does  the  consequence  of  our  institutions  for  the  most 
part  depend. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM  89 

It  is  so  much  the  fashion  for  socialists  to  rail  against 
private  property,  and  particularly  that  form  of  it  which 
is  called  capital,  that  it  may  be  as  well  to  clear  our  skirts 
of  all  confusion  on  this  subject  by  recognising  at  once 
the  extent  to  which  civilisation  depends  on  private  prop- 
erty for  its  existence  in  the  first  place,  and  for  its  sur- 
vival in  the  second. 


§  1.   The    Civilising    Force    of    Private    Prop- 
erty BY  Promoting  Self-Control 

The  struggle  for  life  is  for  the  most  part  a  struggle  for 
food.  If  the  supply  of  food  were  sufficient,  attainable, 
and  constant,  there  would  be  no  struggle ;  but  inasmuch 
as  it  tends  to  be  insufficient,  unattainable,  and  inconstant, 
the  struggle  for  it  is  perpetual.  The  inconstancy  of  the 
supply  of  food  is  the  principal  element  in  the  struggle 
which  gives  rise  to  the  instinct  of  accumulation. 

Instinctive  accumulation  is  more  developed  in  social 
than  in  unsocial  animals.  The  unsocial  carnivora  do 
bury  their  prey  and  return  to  it ;  they  have  a  fierce  sense 
of  individual  property  in  it,  as  is  evident  by  the  savage- 
ness  with  which  they  will  fight  for  it.  But  their  provi- 
dence never  goes  to  the  point  of  laying  in  during  the 
summer  a  supply  of  food  for  the  winter,  for  the  reason 
that  the  character  of  their  food  is  such  that  it  cannot 
be  preserved  by  any  device  at  their  disposal  during  the 
necessary  period;  but  even  though  their  food  were 
capable  of  preservation,  solitary  life  does  not  furnish 
the  possibility  of  co-operation  necessary  to  large  accu- 
mulation. Social  animals,  on  the  contrary,  —  that  is 
to  say,  those  which  live  in  communities,  —  have  the  in- 
stinct of  accumulation  very  strongly  developed;  and  it 
is  a  matter  of  no  small  interest  to  notice  that  the  pro- 
cess of   accumulation    seems  to  involve   two  qualities, 


90  INDIVIDUALISM 

both  of  which  are  cons23icuoiis  by  their  high  develop- 
ment in  man.  These  qualities  are  prudence  and  self- 
control. 

It  will  doubtless  be  claimed  by  those  who  regard  ani- 
mals as  mere  automata,  that  prudence  and  self-control 
as  such  are  not  to  be  found  in  them ;  that  their  move- 
ments are  purely  the  result  of  reflex  action,  and  that 
those  communities  survive  in  which  the  reflex  action 
engaged  in  gathering  food  supply  is  in  excess  of  that 
needed  for  immediate  purposes.  How  far  ants  and  bees 
are  pure  automata  need  not  be  discussed.  It  is  only 
necessary  here  to  contrast  the  habits  of  social  with 
unsocial  animals,  —  habits  which,  when  we  find  them 
associated  with  consciousness  and  the  moral  sense  in 
man,  become  recognised  as  virtues  and  their  respective 
opposites.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  usefully  noted 
that  if  there  is  in  ants  any  volitional  power  which  could 
interfere  with  their  apparently  altruistic  devotion  to 
the  community,  it  is  embryonic ;  for  as  a  matter  of  fact 
we  see  these  insects  uninterruptedly  doing  the  work  of 
the  corrimunity  without  apparently  the  possibility  of 
doing  otherwise;  they  seem  for  the  most  part  to  be 
undistracted  by  selfishness.  We  may  set  it  down, 
then,  as  certain  that  the  habits  of  carnivora  tend  to  pro- 
mote a  fierce  sense  of  private  propert}^  in  the  products 
of  the  chase;  whereas  the  habits  formed  in  communities 
seem  to  be  such  as  to  obliterate  all  sense  of  private  prop- 
erty and  to  substitute  therefor  a  sense  of  ownership  in 
common. 

The  fierce  sense  of  property  in  the  female,  or  sexual 
jealousy,  which  characterises  the  carnivora,  has  already 
been  pointed  out;  and  this  has  been  contrasted  with  the 
singular  and  savage  system  by  means  of  which  the 
sexual  jealousy  arising  therefrom  has  been  eliminated 
in  such  communities  as  those  of  ants  or  bees. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM  91 

The  contrast,  therefore,  between  the  social  and  the 
unsocial  animal  can  be  briefly  stated  as  follows:  the  so- 
cial animal,  by  the  destruction  of  one  sex,  destroys  the  pos- 
sibility of  sexual  jealousy  and  kills  in  embryo  the  sense 
of  property  in  the  female;  and  the  sense  of  private 
property  in  the  results  of  labour  seems  to  be  entirely  re- 
placed by  a  sense  of  ownership  in  common.  The  un- 
social animals,  on  the  other  hand,  are  characterised  by 
a  fierce  sense  of  property  in  the  female,  and  of  indi- 
vidual property  in  the  products  of  the  chase. 

When  we  now  turn  our  attention  from  lower  animals 
to  man,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  they 
have  solved  both  the  problem  of  property  in  the  female 
and  the  problem  of  property  in  the  product  of  toil  in 
very  much  the  same  way ;  that  is  to  say,  by  the  exercise 
of  self-control.  Nor  must  we  fail  to  take  account  also 
of  the  fact  that  the  exercise  of  self-control  permits  of 
their  retaining  the  individualistic  sense  of  private  prop- 
erty with  the  social  sense  of  State  property  also. 

The  sense  of  property,  which  has  been  already  pointed 
out  as  the  very  foundation  of  human  institutions,  in- 
volves a  sense  of  obligation ;  for  example,  it  involves 
the  obligation  to  respect  the  property  of  others,  the  ob- 
ligation to  contribute  something  in  the  shape  of  prop- 
erty to  the  State,  and  the  obligation  to  contribute  a 
great  deal  in  the  shape  of  personal  service  and  personal 
labour  to  the  State. 

Now,  if  the  power  to  exercise  the  self-control  involved 
in  these  respective  obligations,  and  if  the  willingness  to 
exercise  this  self-control  were  equal  in  all  men,  there 
would  be  little  necessity  for  government;  and  this  is 
the  point  where  men  seem  to  differ  most  from  ants  and 
bees.  In  these  last  every  individual  and  every  class 
seem  equally  willing  to  do  the  work  for  which  each  is 
particularly  fitted,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  power  to 


92  INDIVIDUALISM 

choose  an  alternative  course  there  is  apparently  no- 
where in  the  community  a  necessity  for  the  exercise  of 
self-control.  The  result  of  this  is  that  we  have  in 
every  community  of  ants  and  bees  what  seems  to  be  an 
automatic  machine;  every  part  of  which,  though  pos- 
sessed of  apparent  individuality,  can  be  counted  upon 
to  do  the  work  which  by  survival  it  has  been  fitted  to 
do.  Communities  of  ants  and  bees,  therefore,  are  char- 
acterised by  uniformity  of  individuals  in  each  class. 
Now,  the  uniformity  which  characterises  communities 
of  the  lower  animals  is  conspicuous  by  its  absence  in 
those  of  man;  and  very  little  consideration  will  show 
how  far-reaching  this  absence  of  uniformity  is. 

Men  are  unequal  not  only  in  their  power  of  self- 
control,  but  in  the  productiveness  of  their  efforts,  and 
in  their  ability  to  command  the  submission  of  others. 
They  also  differ  in  willingness  to  exercise  self-control, 
in  willingness  to  labour,  and  in  willingness  to  submit 
to  others. 

The  consequence  of  these  inequalities  must  be  that 
those  who  have  great  power  of  self-control,  great  power 
of  productive  toil,  and  great  power  of  commanding  the 
submission  of  others  will  become  the  masters  of  those 
who  are  willing  to  labour  and  willing  to  submit. 

This  is  the  process  by  which  the  individualistic  tem- 
perament developed  by  the  possession  of  these  powers 
is  set  upon  subjugating  the  socialistic  temperament  and 
appropriating  the  benefits  of  society  to  its  own  use.  But 
this  ])rocess,  on  the  other  hand,  tends  to  correct  itself. 
The  unresisted  exercise  of  power  takes  away  the  neces- 
sity for  self-control;  and  abuse  of  power  destroys  the 
willingness  to  submit  to  it.  As  self-control  tends  to 
disappear  under  such  conditions,  society  is  left  to  the 
struggle  between  opposing  selfishnesses.  But  the  disap- 
pearance of  self-control  makes  the  governing  class  cruel 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  93 

and  weak,  while  abuse  of  power  tends  to  make  the  gov- 
erned class  fierce  and  rebellious ;  so  that  the  condition 
at  last  becomes  one  of  unstable  equilibrium.  The  gov- 
erned class  becomes  strong  enough  to  revolt;  the  gov- 
erning class  too  weak  to  govern ;  the  result  is  a  culhute 
generale  and  a  tendency  to  return  to  anarchy. 

Now,  a  condition  of  anarchy  is  just  the  one  which  is 
likely  to  require  once  more  the  exercise  of  self-control ; 
for  under  such  conditions  the  tyrants  and  the  slaves 
tend  mutually  to  destroy  one  another,  and  thereby  to 
permit  those  who  are  neither  tyrants  nor  slaves  (wher- 
ever these  may  be  found)  to  re-establish  social  conditions 
in  which  some  measure  of  self-control  will  be  found  not 
only  in  those  who  are  willing  to  serve,  but  also  in  those 
who  are  able  to  govern. 

By  these  elements  in  the  population  centres  of  indus- 
try are  formed ;  and  round  them  political  institutions  are 
likely  to  be  restored,  government  is  likely  to  be  wisely 
administered,  and  wealth  is  likely  to  accumulate;  for 
political  power  and  wealth  serve  only  to  strengthen 
those  who  exercise  self-control  in  the  use  of  them,  and 
emasculate  only  those  incapable  of  exercising  self- 
control  in  such  use.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  mere 
possession  of  power  and  wealth,  by  eliminating  the 
necessity  of  self-control,  tends  again  to  destroy  it ;  and 
the  abuse  of  power  and  wealth  tends  again  to  restore 
pre-existing  conditions.  Hence,  the  same  process  tends 
to  be  repeated  over  and  over  again. 

We  have  already  seen  this  process  in  operation  at 
Athens,  Sparta,  and  Rome.  The  civilisation  of  Greece 
and  Rome  differs  from  that  of  Assyria  and  Egypt  in 
the  character  of  its  religion,  for  that  of  the  former 
gave  a  peculiar  sacredness  to  private  property.  Greek 
and  Roman  religion  was  essentially  domestic;  it  con- 
secrated the  property  of  a  man  in  the   fidelity  of  his 


94  INDIVIDUALISM 

wife  by  the  institution  of  marriage,  and  the  property 
of  a  family  in  its  home  by  converting  every  hearth  into 
a  temple.  Out  of  this  religious  sense  of  private  prop- 
erty arose  the  individualism  which  characterises  Greek 
republics,  and  the  fierce  jealousy  between  these  repub- 
lics which  prevented  their  ever  becoming  federated  into 
a  nation.  If  Rome,  though  built  up  on  similar  institu- 
tions, became  a  nation,  it  was  by  conquest,  2iot  by  fed- 
eration. Individualism  continued  to  characterise  Roman 
civilisation,  as  it  did  that  of  Greece ;  and  individualism 
is  at  once  the  cause  of  private  property  and  its  result. 
For  while  the  individualistic  temperament  tends  to 
create  the  sense  of  private  property,  the  last  reacts  upon 
the  individualistic  temperament  and  reinforces  it.  It 
is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  more  powerful  grew  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  more  powerful  grew  its  individualis- 
tic and  property  instincts,  so  that  Rome  presented  in  her 
latter  days  the  tyranny  of  wealth  in  its  most  revolting 
aspect. 

This  necessary  result,  however,  of  the  unbridled  de- 
velopment of  individualism  and  wealth  must  not  blind 
us  to  the  indispensable  role  which  both  have  played  in 
the  development  of  the  race;  for  in  this  development 
two  inherited  instincts  had  to  be  eliminated,  —  the 
ferocity  of  the  solitary  carnivora  and  the  automatic 
servility  of  the  ant.  Out  of  these  two  instincts,  each 
of  them  in  a  measure  indispensable  and  both  of  them 
together  inconsistent,  there  had  to  be  developed  an 
intelligent  exercise  of  self-control;  and  this  could  be 
accomplished  in  only  one  way.  The  tiger  in  man  had  to 
curb  his  selfishness,  and  the  ant  in  him  had  to  acquire  it. 
Now,  the  ferocity  of  the  one  was  due  to  the  failure  of 
rivals  to  recognise  rights  of  private  property ;  while  the 
servility  of  the  other  was  due  to  instinctive  respect  for 
the  property  of  the  State.     The  one  is  in  a  perpetual 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM  95 

rage  lest  his  individual  property  be  attacked;  the  other 
in  a  dull  ignorance  that  individual  property  can  ever  be 
enjoyed.  Now,  it  is  possible  to  educate  these  opposite 
instincts  so  as  to  develop  an  intelligent  recognition  of 
the  use  and  abuse  of  the  good  things  of  this  world,  and 
to  make  this  recognition  serviceable  in  developing  the 
higher  nature  of  man ;  and  the  instrumentality  through 
which  these  invaluable  results  were  attained  was  the 
institution  of  private  property.  For  when  ferocity  dis- 
covered that  its  rights  in  the  product  of  labour  were  re- 
spected, it  tended  by  disuse  to  disappear ;  and  when  the 
servile  automaton  recognised  that  the  more  it  laboured, 
the  more  it  enjoyed,  there  grew  up  in  it  a  nascent  selfish- 
ness which  was  to  substitute  for  the  unconscious  altruism 
of  the  ant  the  latter-day  individualism  of  the  working- 
man.  The  struggle  for  life  went  on  very  much  as  be- 
fore ;  but  instead  of  tending  towards  opposite  results  in 
different  races,  —  towards  ferocity  in  the  carnivore  and 
towards  servility  in  the  ant,  —  it  operated  in  the  same 
species  to  diminish  ferocity  on  the  one  hand  and  servility 
on  the  other;  and  to  develop  the  social  mind  which  con- 
ceives of  society  not  as  an  end  in  itself  to  which  the 
individual  should  be  sacrificed,  but  as  a  means  towards 
the  development  of  the  individual  into  a  "man  and 
master  of  his  fate." 

To  denounce  property  under  these  circumstances  is  to 
denounce  the  scaffolding  which  conceals  and  perhaps 
disgraces  an  uncompleted  temple.  When  the  temple 
is  completed,  the  scaffolding  may  be  torn  down ;  until 
it  is  completed,  the  scaffolding  must  remain.  The  ques- 
tion for  socialists,  who  rail  against  capital,  to  decide  is 
whether  our  human  temple  is  sufficiently  completed  to 
dispense  with  the  scaffolding  through  which  it  has  been 
thus  far  built.  We  should  totally  fail  to  appreciate  the 
role  of  wealth  or  private  property  if  we  studied  it  only 


96  INDlVroUALISM 

from  the  point  of  view  of  its  effect  upon  the  rich.  It 
has  had  quite  as  important  an  effect  upon  the  poor;  for 
while  it  has  permitted  the  rich  to  acquire  knowledge,  it 
has  also  permitted  the  poor  to  break  through  the  husk  of 
servility  from  which  the  servile  element  in  humanity  had 
to  be  emancipated  ;  and  so,  while  the  rich  were  acquiring 
the  arts  of  civilisation,  the  poor  were  learning  how  to 
extend  those  arts  to  themselves,  so  that  to-day  the  ques- 
tion is  no  longer  how  to  accumulate  wealth,  but  rather 
how  to  distribute  it.  The  rule  of  the  institution  of  pri- 
vate property  in  accomplishing  this  result  is  often  for- 
gotten in  view  of  the  more  striking  role  it  has  played  in 
creating  the  injustice  of  distribution  of  which  socialists 
to-day  so  bitterly  complain.  Let  us  endeavour  briefly 
to  trace  the  part  property  has  played  in  history  without 
partiality  either  to  the  rich  or  to  the  poor. 

§  2.  The  Democratic  Force  of  Private  Prop- 
erty BY  Overthrowing  Aristocracy 
OF  Birth 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  religion  created 
in  Ancient  Greece  and  Rome  a  patriarchal  cast  which 
was  separated  from  those  who  had  no  domestic  gods  by 
an  impassable  abyss.  In  both  countries,  therefore,  the 
families  which  held  their  own  in  the  struggle  for  wealth 
and  political  influence  became  an  oppressing  aristocracy; 
and  those  families  which  failed  to  hold  their  own  in  the 
struggle  lost  not  only  their  property,  but  with  it  their 
religion  and  their  caste.  The  ranks  of  these  last  were 
swelled  by  strangers  and  the  offs])ring  of  strangers ;  by 
natural  children;  by  emancipated  slaves;  and  by  all 
who  could  not  claim  direct  descent  from  the  ruling  aris- 
tocracy. This  rabble,  which  had  its  use  in  case  of  war, 
was  for  this  reason    not  discouraged,  but  allowed,  on 


THE   INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  97 

the  contrary,  to  increase ;  and  thus  a  class  was  formed 
that  stood  midway  between  the  patrician  and  the  slave. 
The  tendency  of  patrician  selfishness  was  necessarily  to 
diminish  the  number  of  the  patrician  class ;  for  by  dimin- 
ishing its  numbers  the  larger  was  the  share  of  wealth 
and  power  enjoyed  by  each.  But  this  tendency  defeated 
its  own  aim ;  for  the  patrician,  in  spite  of  his  religious 
ascendency,  became  at  last  unable  to  resist  the  growing 
power  of  the  plebs ;  and  we  find,  therefore,  the  conflict 
resulting  in  a  breaking  down  of  the  religious  barrier  in 
Rome  as  well  as  in  Greece,  and  rank  by  kinship  giving 
way  in  both  countries  to  rank  by  wealth.  The  classifi- 
cation introduced  by  Solon  at  Athens,  and  by  Servius 
Tullius  in  Rome,  was  in  both  instances  a  classification 
of  wealth;  and  this  classification  differs  from  that  of 
kinship  in  the  essentially  democratic  fact  that  whereas 
rank  determined  by  kinship  makes  it  impossible  for  a 
man  not  to  the  manner  born  ever  to  lift  himself  into  a 
higher  social  scale,  rank  determined  by  wealth  opens 
this  possibility  to  every  man  fitted  by  intelligence  to 
do  so. 

Wealth,  therefore,  was  the  great  democratising  factor 
in  both  Greece  and  Rome:  it  furnished  the  ladder  up 
the  rungs  of  which  men  of  ability  could  improve  their 
social  and  political  as  well  as  their  financial  positions; 
it  lifted  into  the  highest  offices  of  the  State  such  "new" 
men  as  Cato,  Marius,  and  Cicero,  and  in  Athens  it  created 
a  democracy  so  complete  that  every  citizen  became  in 
turn  an  office-holder  and  a  judge.  Nor  was  it  in  ancient 
times  alone  that  wealth  proved  the  ally  of  democracy; 
on  the  contrary,  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  wealth 
was  the  lever  through  which  the  people  gradually  ac- 
quired their  political  rights.  For  it  was  when  the  royal 
exchequer  was  empty  that  the  Dauphin  called  together 
the  l^tats  G^ndraux  in  1355,  and  Louis  XVI.  in  1789, 

7 


98  INDIVIDUALISM 

that  Charles  I.  endeavoured  to  levy  ship  money,  and 
George  III.  the  tax  on  tea.  It  was  owing  to  the  insti- 
tution of  private  property  that  the  people  held  the 
strings  of  the  money  bags  and  were  able  to  wrest  from 
the  throne  a  share  in  the  government ;  and  it  is  to  the 
exercise  of  this  power  that  England,  though  in  name 
still  an  empire,  is  in  fact  a  republic. 

While,  however,  we  are  bound  to  recognise  that 
wealth  did  open  the  door  to  ability,  we  must  at  the 
same  time  admit  that  it  was  not  ability  alone  that  could 
profit  by  its  opportunities.  The  ability  had  to  be  of  a 
particular  character:  it  had  generally  to  be  selfish,  un- 
scrupulous, even  sometimes  inhuman ;  it  succeeded  best 
if  it  profited  ungenerously  by  the  generosity  of  others, 
and  ruthlessly  refused  generosity  to  those  who  had 
already  bestowed  it.  The  ladder  offered  by  wealth  is 
too  often  made,  as  it  were,  of  human  hearts;  all  of 
them,  whether  willingly  animated  by  love  or  unwill- 
ingly coerced  by  superior  ability,  are  trampled  upon 
alike  by  those  who  would  soonest  attain  their  ends. 
The  advantage  to  the  race,  therefore,  of  this  democ- 
ratisation  by  wealth,  is  questionable.  But  private 
property  must  not  for  that  reason  be  regarded  as  an  in- 
stitution which  human  sagacity  could  have  dispensed 
with,  but  rather  as  a  phase  through  which  humanity  liad 
to  pass;  it  was  one  of  the  shells  of  the  human  chrys- 
alis, and  humanity  has  had  to  pay  the  price  of  the  strug- 
gle to  break  through  it.  The  essential  fact  for  us 
to  recognise  is  that  it  may  be  only  a  phase,  and  that 
by  wisely  directed  effort  man  may  eventually  escape 
from  it. 

It  should  not  be  necessary  to  repeat  the  story  of  this 
struggle  at  any  length,  nor  to  emphasize  how  little  pro- 
gress lias  been  made ;  for  it  has  been  already  pointed  out 
that    if    men    are    actuated  in  the  main  by  selfishness, 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  99 

progress  is  subject  to  so  frequent  check  as  to  be  dis- 
couragingly  slow.  Selfishness,  by  putting  government 
at  Athens  into  the  hands  of  the  many,  proved  the  ina- 
bilit}'  of  the  many,  if  actuated  only  by  selfish  motives,  to 
govern ;  and,  by  putting  government  at  Rome  into  the 
hands  of  the  few,  demonstrated  the  inability  of  the  few, 
if  actuated  only  by  selfish  motives,  to  govern.  But 
after  the  demonstrated  failure  of  both  aristocracy  and 
democracy  in  these  two  countries  had  prepared  the  way 
for  the  anarchy  which  characterised  the  Middle  Ages, 
a  new  power  came  upon  the  stage  in  the  shape  of  a  new 
religion.  We  have  shown  how  Greek  and  Roman  re- 
ligion degenerated  into  superstition,  and  how  Christianity 
and  Mohammedanism  both  followed  the  same  disheart- 
ening example  under  the  daily  reiterated  conflict  between 
religion  and  selfishness  due  to  the  competitive  system. 
But  Christianity  had  in  it  the  miraculous  vitality  of 
truth,  and  we  find  it,  therefore,  re-expressing  itself  over 
and  over  again  in  the  varying  fortunes  of  man.  The 
crusader  was  one  of  its  most  vigorous  expressions ;  and 
the  demoralisation  of  the  crusade  by  wealth  startlingly 
illustrates  the  operation  of  this  pernicious  influence. 
The  great  orders  organised  by  religious  enthusiasm  to 
rescue  the  sepulchre  from  the  Turk  ended  in  the  same 
way.  Thus  the  Order  of  Templars,  vowed  to  chastity, 
obedience,  and  ijovertij^  acquired  property  with  the  pros- 
perity of  their  cause;  became  the  owners  of  the  most 
formidable  fortresses  in  Palestine  which  the  world  has 
ever  seen ;  occupied  whole  quarters  in  the  city  of  Paris ; 
and  became  at  last  engaged  in  banking,  —  then,  as  now, 
the  most  profitable  branch  of  trade.  Their  enormous 
wealth,  their  enclosure  of  sixty  thousand  square  metres 
in  the  heart  of  Paris,  their  incomparable  donjon,  at  last 
aroused  the  cupidity  of  the  king;  and  the  Templars 
expiated  their  degeneracy  at  the  stake.     This  was  the 


100  INDIVIDUALISM 

first  signal  victory  of  the  commercialism  of  the  soldier 
over  that  of  the  Church. 

The  triumph  of  Philip  of  France  over  Boniface  found 
its  echo  in  England,  and  ended  in  the  confiscation  of 
monastic  property  by  Henry  VIII.  If  these  acts  of 
spoliation  arouse  indignation  to-day,  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  they  were  committed  in  a  conflict  with  an 
institution  which,  while  it  professed  to  be  purely  reli- 
gious, had  under  Boniface  acquired  title  to  about  one- 
third  of  European  soil,  —  all  of  which  claimed  exemption 
from  taxation  by  the  State. 

While,  however,  the  Church  was  corrupting  itself  by 
the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  being  crushed  by  its  acquisi- 
tion, and  while  the  battles  between  feudal  lords,  eccle- 
siastical and  lay,  were  devastating  the  land,  in  a  few 
protected  places  the  indomitable  industry  of  the  people 
was  engaged  in  building  up  little  centres  of  order  and 
of  industry.  Otho  was  the  first  of  mediaeval  monarchs 
to  understand  the  utility  to  the  Crown  of  favouring  muni- 
cipal prosperity  as  a  counterpoise  to  a  factious  nobility ; 
and  so,  under  his  protection,  the  towns  of  Italy,  picking 
up  the  threads  of  corporate  activity  which  still  bound 
them  to  the  collegia  oinfimm  of  ancient  Rome,  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  new  democracy  through  combination  of 
workingmen,  known  under  the  name  of  the  JNIajor  and 
the  Minor  nrts.^  The  Crusades  at  this  propitious  crisis 
opened  to  Italy  the  commerce  of  the  East,  and  the  pros- 
perity which  attended  this  commerce  soon  built  up  the 
city  republics  of  Florence  and  Milan,  Genoa  and  Venice. 
Nor  did  it  stop  at  the  borders  of  Italy;  it  found  a  pas- 
sage over  the  Alps  and  swept  through  Germany  along 
the  valley  of  the  Rhine.  With  the  need  for  protection 
against  the  robber  barons  who  levied  tribute  upon  the 

'  There  seems  to  be  no  brrak  between  the  Ttiediaeval  guilds  of  liavenna 
and  the  ancient  corporations  of  that  town. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         101 

traffic  of  the  stream,  there  grew  not  only  cities  to  pro- 
tect this  traffic,  but  a  confederation  of  these  cities  in  the 
Hanseatic  League.  And  so  the  wealth  of  Asia,  pour- 
ing over  the  wilderness  of  Europe,  dotted  its  course 
with  prosperous  towns,  every  one  of  which  was  a  school 
of  practical  politics  for  the  peaceful  burgher  and  the 
industrious  artisan. 

For  if  France  owes  its  municipal  franchises  to  what 
the  Crusades  took  away  from  her,  Italy  and  Germany 
owe  them  to  what  the  Crusades  brought  back.  And 
when  the  use  of  the  mariner's  compass  permitted  trade 
to  pass  through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  it  bestowed  the 
same  gifts  upon  England  and  the  Netherlands  as  it  had 
already  lavished  on  the  valley  of  the  Rhine.  Moreover, 
corrupt  as  was  the  Church,  it  must  not  be  imagined  for 
that  reason  that  religion  was  dead  in  the  land.  The 
religious  spirit  which  animated  the  burghers  of  Italy 
has  already  been  referred  to;  how  religious  was  the 
spirit  which  engaged  in  commerce  in  those  days  may  be 
gathered  from  the  laws  which  governed  the  Esterlings 
in  London,  "who  lived  in  a  strongly  built  enclosure, 
called  the  Steel  Yard,  the  site  of  which  is  now  occupied 
by  the  City  station  of  the  Southeastern  Railway  Com- 
pany, and  were  much  the  same  as  those  under  which  the 
English  traders  lived  in  Bruges  and  other  cities.  The 
foreign  merchant  had,  in  Caxton's  time,  to  brave  a  large 
amount  of  popular  dislike,  and  to  put  up  with  great 
restraint  on  his  liberty.  Not  only  did  he  trade  under 
harassing  restrictions,  but  he  resigned  all  hopes  of 
domestic  ties  and  family  life.  As  in  a  monastery,  each 
member  had  his  own  dormitory,  whilst  at  meal-times 
there  was  a  common  table.  Marriage  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  concubinage  was  followed  by  expulsion. 
Every  member  was  bound  to  sleep  in  the  house  and  to 
be  indoors  by  a  fixed  time  in  the  evening,  and  for  the 


102  INDIVIDUALISM 

sake  of  good  order  no  woman  of  any  description  was 
allowed  within  the  walls."  ^ 

But  the  religious  light  thus  cast  upon  the  growth  of 
municipal  life  in  the  Middle  Ages  would  be  grossly 
misleading  were  we  for  a  moment  to  lose  sight  of  the 
desperate  struggle  and  bloodshed  through  which  muni- 
cipal privileges  were  secured.  The  short  sketch  already 
given  of  the  conflict  between  Amiens  and  her  feudal 
lords  represents  practically  what  took  place  in  almost 
every  town  in  Europe.  Nor  must  we  imagine  that  the 
triumph  of  the  people  meant  an  era  of  peace;  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  a  new  signal  for  war;  not  war  against 
a  feudal  lord,  but  war  of  one  fraction  of  the  people  with 
another. 

The  history  of  this  war  is  the  history  of  mediaeval 
guilds,  to  which  it  may  be  well  now  to  turn  our  atten- 
tion. So  much  has  been  written  on  the  subject  of  medi- 
aeval guilds  that  it  should  not  be  necessary  to  do  more 
than  sketch  with  the  utmost  brevity  the  story  of  their 
rise  and  fall,  in  order  to  point  out  that  the  history  of 
these  guilds  illustrates  the  inevitable  and  devastating 
consequence  of  selfishness. 

§  3.  The  Socialising  Force  of  Private  Property. 
—  By  Association  in  Guilds 

Nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  the  original 
purpose  of  these  guilds;  nothing  more  wise  than  the 
system  adopted  for  carrying  out  their  respective  pur- 
poses. The  guild  was  originally  a  combination  of  all 
persons  engaged  in  the  same  trade,  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  the  interests  of  that  trade,  not  only  from  the 
point  of  view  of  those  employed  in  it,  but  also  from  the 

1  Thfi  Rio.t,Taphy  and  Topo^^rapliy  of  William  Caxton,  England's  First 
Printer,  by  William  Blades.     8vo,  1877,  p.  22. 


THE  INSTEUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         103 

point  of  view  of  the  public  welfare.  It  has  been  already 
pointed  out  how  large  a  part  religion  played  in  the 
organisation  and  functions  of  the  guild;  none  but  Cath- 
olics were  admitted ;  the  performance  of  religious  duties 
was  strictly  enjoined ;  every  guild  was  under  the  pro- 
tection of  a  saint  whose  feast-day  was  celebrated 
with  pomp ;  every  guild  had  its  own  chapel  or  its  own 
altar  in  the  parish  church;  and  every  religious  cere- 
mony the  guilds,  grouped  each  around  its  own  banner, 
attended. 

Brotherly  charity  was  the  virtue  practised  as  well  as 
preached  by  the  guild ;  a  small  contribution  insured  re- 
lief to  any  member  of  the  guild  who  stood  in  need 
thereof;  and  at  every  great  crisis  in  the  lives  of  its 
members  the  guild  stood  ready  to  comfort  and  to 
cheer. 

Strictly  democratic  in  their  form  of  government,  they 
were  subject  to  the  manorial  lord  or  king  only  through 
the  payment  of  a  yearly  tribute  and  a  formal  supervision 
of  their  rules ;  but  the  moment  the  rights  of  the  guilds, 
or  of  that  larger  guild  to  which  they  all  belonged,  —  the 
town,  — were  attacked,  that  moment  these  guilds  as- 
sumed not  only  a  political  but  a  military  role.  As  has 
been  already  pointed  out,  it  was  these  guilds  that  secured 
the  independence  of  the  free  towns  of  Germany,  and  it 
was  the  burghers  gathered  round  their  guild  banners 
that  saved  France  from  John  of  England  at  the  Battle 
of  Bovine ;  it  was  the  burghers  of  hihge  that  hewed  in 
pieces  the  noblesse  of  Brabazon,  and  it  was  the  Flemish 
pietraille  which,  in  the  Battle  of  the  Golden  Spurs, 
crushed  the  chivalry  of  France. 

Nor  must  we  neglect  to  mention  the  dignity  which 
guild  life  gave  to  the  labour  of  the  artisan.  The  imple- 
ments which  figured  on  their  banners  were  the  tools  of 
their  trade ;  and  it  is  the  tools  of  their  trade  which  we 


104  INDIVIDUALISM 

see   in  the  stained  glass  windows  that  still   adorn  the 
Gothic  cathedrals  of  the  Middle  Age.^ 

This  was  the  spirit  which  converted  every  artisan 
into  an  artist,  and  which  can  find  to-day  no  better  form 
for  conveying  the  irreproachable  character  of  a  piece  of 
workmanship  than  to  say  of  it  that  it  is  de  main 
d^ouvrier. 

The  system  adopted  by  the  guilds  for  securing  the 
highest  class  of  work  could  be  summed  up  in  the  words 
education  and  surveillance.  No  man  was  allowed  to  be- 
come a  master  in  any  trade  unless  he  had  served  his 
apprenticeship  first,  and  had  passed  the  examination 
which  justified  his  graduation  into  the  class  known 
under  the  name  "journeyman,"  and  had,  after  a  second 
examination,  justified  both  in  theory  and  practice  his 
right  to  be  admitted  to  the  highest  rank  of  all.  Nor 
was  he  at  any  time  free  from  the  surveillance  of  a  com- 
mittee of  his  guild,  especially  elected  to  exercise  it ;  and 
the  rules  laid  down  by  the  guilds  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  the  highest  class  of  work  singularly  anticipate 
the  rules  laid  do\vn  to-day  by  the  factory  laws  on  the 
one  hand  and  by  the  trade  unions  on  the  other.  For 
the  workingman  was  not  then,  as  now,  in  opposition  to 
his  employer;  on  the  contrary,  both  formed  part  of  the 
same  guild,  and  the  interests  of  one  were  thereby  made 
the  interests  of  the  other.^  Thus  it  was  not  necessary 
to  curb  the  greed  of  the  employer  by  hostile  legislation ; 
nor  was  it  necessary  to  limit,  by  the  organisation  of 
trade  unions,  the  competition  of  workingmen  with  one 
another.     Competition  was  eliminated  by  the  fact  that 

1  The  most  beautiful  of  the  famous  windows  in  the  apse  of  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Bourges  are  the  gifts  of  guilds. 

2  There  were  in  Germany  so-called  "  Gesellenvereine,"  or  journeymen 
guilds  in  which  emidoyers  had  no  share  ;  but  these  were  social  rather  than 
industrial  in  their  character,  and  constituted  an  exception  rather  than  the 
rule.     These  journeymen  guilds  were  also  found  in  England. 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        105 

no  man  could  engage  in  a  trade  unless  he  belonged  to 
the  guild  organised  to  defend  and  protect  the  trade; 
and  as  the  guild  itself  was  master  of  the  question  who 
was  to  be  admitted  thereto,  undue  competition  was 
impossible.  Moreover,  another  aim  of  the  guild  was 
to  protect  the  public  in  the  purchase  of  its  wares,  and  to 
prevent  the  fabrication  of  articles  of  poor  quality ;  the 
guilds,  therefore,  themselves  put  limitations  on  the  con- 
ditions of  manufacture  which  competition  uncontrolled 
by  the  guild  system  would  not  permit. 

It  would  seem  as  though  the  early  years  of  guild  life 
were  the  halcyon  days  of  the  workingman ;  but  it  is  the 
painful  duty  of  the  historian  to  record  that,  notwith- 
standing the  high  stiindards  raised  in  its  inception  by 
the  guild,  human  selfishness  did  for  the  guild  what  it 
had  already  done  for  the  knight-errant;  the  privilege 
possessed  by  the  guild  of  limiting  the  number  of  its  own 
members  it  ruthlessly  exercised,  so  as  to  make  the  num- 
ber of  persons  at  liberty  to  engage  in  a  given  trade  in- 
adequate. For  example,  the  whole  business  of  killing 
and  selling  meat  was  at  one  time  in  Paris  confined  to 
twenty  persons.  Needless  to  say,  these  persons  did  not 
themselves  engage  in  the  business;  they  sublet  their 
respective  monopolies  to  other  corporations  and  guilds 
organised  for  the  purpose  of  taking  the  contracts,  and 
they  became,  therefore,  a  commercial  but  idle  aristocracy. 
Again,  in  order  to  prevent  competition  within  the  guild, 
it  became  necessary  to  determine  prices,  and  in  the 
effort  to  determine  prices  it  became  necessary  to  deter- 
mine quality;  and  this  double  necessity  gave  rise  to  rules 
so  stringent  as  to  become  intolerable  and  unjust. 

So  great  became  the  tyranny  of  the  guilds  that  we 
find  the  king  himself,  in  1776,  proclaiming  the  "in- 
alienable right  to  work,"  which  has  to-day  become  the 
shibboleth  of  a  certain  school  of  socialists.     In  the  year 


106  INDIVIDUALISM 

in  which  we  in  America  were  setting  forth  our  political 
rights  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Louis  XVI. 
took  the  workingman  under  his  protection  in  these 
remarkable  words :  — 

"Nous  devons  k  nos  sujets  de  leur  assurer  la  jouissance 
pleine  et  entiere  de  leurs  droits,  nous  devons  surtout  iiotre 
protection  a  cette  classe  d'hommes  qui  n'out  de  propriete 
que  leur  travail  et  leur  industrie." 

"Dieu,  en  donnant  a  rhomme  des  besoins,  en  rendaut 
necessaire  la  ressource  du  travail,  a  fait  chi  droit  de  travadller 
la  propriete  de  tout  homme,  et  cette  propriete  est  la  premiere, 
la  plus  sacree,  et  la  jjIus  imprescriptible  de  toutes. 

"Nous  regardons  comme  un  des  premiers  devoirs  de  notre 
justice,  et  comme  un  des  actes  les  plus  dignes  de  notre 
bienfaisance,  d'affranchir  nos  sujets  de  toutes  les  atteintes 
portees  a  ce  droit  inalienable  de  Vhumanite," 

It  is  true  that  the  hand  is  the  hand  of  Louis,  but  the 
voice  was  the  voice  of  Turgot;  and  that  voice  was 
destined  not  to  be  hushed  until  it  had  received  the 
weighty  support  of  Adam  Smith  and  the  consecration 
of  the  Manchester  School. 

But  neither  Turgot  nor  Louis  himself  were  able  to 
crush  the  power  of  the  guilds;  these  last  had  behind 
them  the  traditions  of  five  centuries,  and  the  Parliament 
of  Paris  refused  to  register  the  edict.  The  king,  how- 
ever, disregarded  the  refusal  of  the  Paris  Parliament, 
and  the  edict  was  executed  in  the  city  of  Paris,  althougli 
it  was  found  impossible  of  execution  in  the  provinces. 
Meanwliile,  attempts  to  execute  it  gave  rise  to  such 
disorder  that  in  the  same  year  the  edict  was  abrogated ; 
and  it  Avas  not  until  the  French  Revolution  that  the 
guilds  received  their  final  blow.^ 

1  The  Corporation  was  by  no  means  supreme  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  Franco,  as  in  En;,'lan(l,  the  (Icvclopnii'nt  of  now  industrios  in  such  towns 
as  Jiordeaux,  Marseilles,  Liverpool,  and  iManchcster  menaced  the  power  of 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         107 

The  history  of  the  guild  is  so  familiar  to  political 
students  that  it  would  not  have  been  recapitulated  here 
were  it  not  that  such  recapitulation  was  necessary  in 
order  to  draw  from  this  history  its  necessary  conclusion. 
Just  as  chivalry  sought  to  introduce  high  ideals  into  the 
life  of  the  soldier,  so  the  guild  sought  to  bring  high 
ideals  into  the  life  of  the  artisan.  Both  failed  for  the 
same  reason ;  they  both  ended  in  a  direct  appeal  to  his 
self-interest,  and  in  so  doing  they  strengthened  the  very 
motive  which  is  destructive  to  his  higher  nature.  It 
would  be  sheer  waste  of  time  to  trace  the  operation  of 
self-interest  in  the  abuse  of  power  by  the  guild ;  for  it 
ought  by  this  time  to  be  obvious  not  only  that  power 
stimulated  by  selfishness  was  abused  by  the  guilds,  but 
that  it  must  have  been  so  abused.  The  evil  did  not  rest 
with  the  guilds ;  it  rested  with  the  competition  to  which 
the  guilds  were  exposed.  On  the  one  side  was  the 
growth  of  population,  which,  in  spite  of  apprenticeships, 
tended  always  to  increase  the  ranks  of  the  artisans ;  on 
the  other  side  was  the  struggle  of  competing  guilds  for 
purchasers  in  the  market.  The  former  tended  to  keep 
wages  down;  the  latter  tended  to  keep  prices  down. 
Nothing  but  regulation  of  price,  regulation  of  wages, 
and  regulation  of  admission  of  members  to  the  guild 
could  prevent  wages  from  going  down  to  the  starvation 
level.  But  regulation  meant  putting  into  the  hands  of 
a  few  men  to  whom  the  task  of  regulation  was  intrusted 
the  power  to  determine  who  were  to  be  members  of  the 
guild,  and  the  conditions  under  which  these  members 
were  to  be  admitted  and  to  work.  Now,  the  exercise 
of  this  power  involved  the  exclusion  of  men  from  ad- 
mission to  the  guild,  or,  in  other  words,  from  permission 

the  guilds  ;  and  [doubtless  the  guild  would  have  perished  in  France,  as  it 
did  in  England,  without  legislative  interference,  had  the  matter  been  left 
to  the  automatic  ebb  and  tide  of  action  and  reaction. 


108  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  work,  who  by  such  exclusion  were  doomed  to  pau- 
perism and  to  crime.  It  does  not  seem  conceivable  that 
such  a  deliberate  condemnation  of  the  innocent  to  misery 
could  be  continuously  practised  without  blunting  sym- 
pathy for  those  condemned ;  nor  does  it  seem  conceiv- 
able that  this  sympathy  could  long  be  blunted  without 
opening  the  door  to  private  greed;  for  it  is  sympathy 
which  for  the  most  part  keeps  the  door  closed  to  greed. 
The  guild,  then,  could  not  but  eventually  become  the 
instrument  of  the  very  evil  it  was  instituted  to  suppress ; 
in  rescuing  the  artisan  from  the  tyranny  of  the  baron  it 
became  itself  a  tyrant.  With  this  important  difference, 
however,  that  whereas  the  tyranny  of  the  baron  cor- 
rupted only  the  baron,  that  of  the  guild  corrupted  all 
the  members  of  the  guild.  So  that  whereas  the  baronial 
rule  demoralised  only  a  small  minority,  that  of  the  guild 
demoralised  almost  the  entire  population;  for  it  pam- 
pered one  portion  of  it  into  a  perversion  of  the  sense  of 
justice,  and  it  relegated  a  large  part  of  the  remainder  to 
vagabondage. 

How  far  the  moral  sense  of  those  who  profited  by  the 
guild  system  was  demoralised  by  it  may  be  judged  by 
the  laws  passed  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury to  deal  with  the  wretches  for  whose  misery  the 
exclusiveness  of  the  guild  was  in  large  part  responsible. 
Able-bodied  men  found  begging  were  upon  a  first  con- 
viction whipped  and  sent  home ;  upon  a  second  convic- 
tion their  ears  were  cropped ;  and  upon  a  third  they  were 
put  to  death.  ^ 

But  not  even  the  death  penalty  could  put  an  end  to 
a  vagabondage  which  was  a  necessary  consequence  of 

1  Statute  of  1536,  27  Henry  YIII.  c.  25.  The  weakness  of  the  State 
and  the  absence  of  a  proiierly  organised  police  system  is  doubtless  responsi- 
ble in  part  for  the  harshness  of  these  laws  ;  but  the  existence  of  tlie  unem- 
ployed is  doubtless  responsible  for  it  also. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         109 

existing^  industrial  conditions.  These  conditions  had 
to  break  up,  and  in  breaking  up  they  gave  rise  to  new 
conditions  more  demoralising,  perhaps,  than  those  which 
preceded  them;  for  although  the  poor-laws  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  did  diminish  the  violence  theretofore  practised 
upon  vagabonds,  they  created  a  condition  of  pauperism 
which  in  many  parishes  reduced  the  majority  to  de- 
pendence upon  the  poor-rates,  pat  an  end  to  industr}', 
and  condemned  the  land  to  idleness.  In  the  parish  of 
Cholesbury,  in  1833,  out  of  a  total  population  of  139, 
only  35  supported  themselves;  the  remaining  104  re- 
ceived relief  from  the  parish.  The  cultivation  of  all 
lands  except  sixteen  acres  was  abandoned,  the  rates 
havingr  more  than  swallowed  the  rent.^ 

The  only  encouraging  fact  in  this  pitiful  story  is  that 
such  evils  as  these  tend  to  their  own  destruction. 
Tyranny,  so  long  as  there  is  a  saving  grace  anywhere 
in  the  population,  tends  to  destroy  the  tyrant;  and  so 
the  towns  in  which  labour  was  regulated  decayed,  and 
there  arose  in  their  place  "villages  "  in  which  no  such 
regulation  existed.  The  villages  of  that  century  are 
the  cities  of  our  own;  they  are  Manchester,  Bimiing- 
ham,  and  Sheffield. 

But  whether  social  conditions  in  these  great  munici- 
palities are  more  or  less  demoralising  than  those  which 
prevailed  in  the  sixteenth  century  remains  to  be  seen. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  ^  to  the  tyranny  of 
the  corporation  and  the  reaction  towards  individualism, 
to  wliich  these  tyrannies  gave  rise.  And  with  the  char- 
acter of  this  tyranny  fresh  in  mind  it  is  not  difficult 
to  understand  why  the  political  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  attributed  the  economic  evils  of  that 
time   to   over-regulation;    and   as   the    over-regulation 

1  Maltbie,  "  English  Local  Government  of  To-day,"  p.  58. 

2  See  vol.  i.  book  i.  chap.  i.  pp.  26,  27. 


110  INDIVIDUALISM 

complained  of  was  essentially  artificial  or  non-natural 
in  its  character,  it  was  likely  that  the  evil  should  appear 
to  them  as  an  infringement  of  natural  conditions  or  so- 
called  natural  law.     This  is  doubtless  the  reason  why 
we  read  so  much  about  Nature  and  Natural  Law  in  the 
writings  of  Rousseau  and  Quesnay,  and  why  these  men 
should  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  political  economy 
of  Adam  Smith.     The  doctrine  of  Laissez  faire  having 
been  much  criticised  already  in  the  first  volume,  the 
impression   has    doubtless    been    conveyed   that    it   is 
deemed  essentially  unsound    and   bad.     But   this   im- 
pression would  be  a  mistake;  it  may   be  bad  to-day, 
and  yet  have  been  inevitable  at  that  time ;  for  the  more 
familiar  we  become  with  the   political  conditions  that 
prevailed  at  different  periods  of  history,  the  more  we 
have  to  recognise  that  the  political  theories   of  these 
periods  bear  a  necessary  relation    to   these  conditions. 
The  natural  way  of  dealing  with  an  evil  is  to  direct 
against  it  a  frontal  attack;   but   if   the    evil   attacked 
turns  out  to   be  a  Quaker   gun,  such   a   system    only 
exposes   the   attacking   party   to   demolition   from   the 
mouth   of   the   real   though    concealed    battery   on  the 
flank,  which  he  has  not  had  the  wit  to  discover.     The 
misery  which   existed   between   the  sixteenth  and  the 
eighteenth  centuries  was  obviously  due  in  part,  at  any 
rate,  to  the  tyranny  and  exclusiveness  of  the  guilds  or 
corporations;  and  these  again  exercised  their  tyranny 
through  the  process  of  regulation.     The  most  obvious 
remedy,    then,    was    to   suppress    the   guild,    suppress 
regulation,  and  open  the  way  to  freedom.     Sentiment 
took  up  the  theme,  and  freedom  became  the  topic  of 
philosophy   and   literature   as    well   as    legislation.     It 
intoxicated  France,  and  cannily  laid  the  foundation  of 
the  British  Empire;  for  to-day  it  is  uiidi-r  the  banner 
of   free  trade  that  England    is  justifying  her  conquest 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        111 

of  the  East ;  and  it  is  behind  the  mask  of  free  contract 
that  we  can  distinguish  the  ominous  countenance  of  the 
Sweater  and  the  Absentee.  For  there  is  no  more  free- 
dom of  contract  between  unorganised  labour  and  a  capi- 
talist than  between  unorganised  labour  and  a  guild;  in 
both  cases  the  labourer  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  employer, 
for  the  one  is  not  free  to  refuse  work,  and  the  other  is 
comparatively  free  to  withhold  it. 

This,  of  course,  is  an  old  story,  and  is  only  recalled 
here  to  connect  the  tyranny  of  capital  with  that  of  the 
corporation,  for  the  purpose  of  showing,  not  that  capital 
is  oppressive,  but  that  it  must  be  so. 

And  here,  at  the  risk  of  wearying  with  repetition,  it 
may  be  well  to  point  out  that  the  demonstration  of  the 
evils  attending  capital  is  not  an  attack  upon  the  capital- 
ist. He  is  in  one  sense  as  great  a  victim  of  the  com- 
petitive system  as  the  unemployed;  he  is  no  more 
responsible  for  the  misery  he  occasions  than  he  is  for  the 
pauperism  to  which  he  unconsciously  and  unwillingly 
contributes.  There  are  doubtless  employers  who  are 
little,  if  at  all,  affected  by  the  unhappiness  of  the 
workingman;  but  again  there  are  employers  who  are 
keenly  sensitive  to  it  and  eagerly  looking  for  a  remedy. 
We  shall  never  find  the  remedy  or  even  an  enduring 
palliative  until  we  understand  the  disease;  and  we  can- 
not understand  the  disease  so  long  as  we  are  bent  upon 
putting  the  responsibility  on  the  employers.  Let  us 
look  for  the  disease  with  the  impartiality  of  a  physician, 
and  we  shall  then  escape  the  delusions  of  the  partisan. 

§  4.   The  Tyranny  op  Private  Property. 
—  The  Market 

It  is  not  necessary  —  nor  would  it  be  wise  —  to  repeat 
here  the  argument  against  capital  which,  since  the  day 
of  Karl  Marx,  has  been  kindling  the  rage  of  the  work- 


112  INDIVIDUALISM 

ingman ;  for  we  are  not  so  much  concerned  with  the  in- 
justice which  cajDital  has  caused,  or  does  cause,  as  we 
are  with  the  question  how  capital  can  be  reconciled  with 
justice,  if  at  ail.  In  other  words,  is  capital  good  or 
bad  ?  If  bad,  is  it  necessary  ?  If  necessary  to-day,  will 
it  be  necessary  always  ? 

I  cannot  but  think  that  Karl  Marx  made  his  first  mis- 
take in  the  selection  of  his  title;  for,  as  has  been  already 
suggested,  capital  per  se  is  a  blessing ;  it  is  the  product 
of  labour  and  self-restraint;  it  is  the  result  of  applying 
intelligence  and  effort  to  the  solution  of  those  problems 
which  the  destructive  forces  in  nature  are  for  ever  pre- 
senting to  us.  It  is  not  from  the  accumulation  of  wealth 
—  called  capital  —  that  the  evil  results,  but  in  its  distri- 
bution; and  the  problem  we  have  to  solve  is,  how  the 
distribution  of  capital  or  income  can  be  modified  so  as  to 
occasion  less  injustice  in  the  world ;  and  in  the  course  of 
the  discussion  how  such  a  modification  can  result  in  im- 
proving the  human  type  instead  of — -as  has  already  been 
indicated  —  degrading  it. 

When,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  it  became  clear  that 
pauperism  in  France  was  in  great  part  due  to  the  tyranny 
of  the  corporation,  it  was  not  a  difficult  matter  to  lay 
the  corporation  low ;  it  was  accomplished  l)y  a  stroke  of 
the  pen.  But  when  we  endeavour  to-day  to  run  the  evil 
to  earth  under  the  existing  capitalistic  system  we  are 
confronted  with  a  totally  diiferent  state  of  things.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  point  to  the  employer  and  put  the  blame 
on  him ;  but  the  blame  will  not  rest  there,  for  the  em- 
ployer will  pass  it  on  to  the  INIarket  —  and  it  is  to  the 
Market  that  it  legitimately  belongs.  Now,  the  Market 
cannot  be  disposed  of  as  easily  as  the  corporation,  for  the 
Market  represents  in  one  sense  the  whole  community. 
We  all  want  to  buy  cloth  and  corn  cheap;  and  so  long  as 
these  are  cheap,  the  labour  that  contributes  to  produce 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         113 

them  must  be  cheap.  ^  It  is  not,  then,  the  employer  who 
keeps  wages  low;  it  is  you,  and  I,  and  every  one  of  us. 
If  low  wages  are  a  crime,  we  are  all  participes  ci'iminis ; 
and  if  we  adopt  the  language  of  sentiment  and  apply  it 
to  ourselves,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  every  time  we 
avail  ourselves  of  the  low  prices  of  a  department  store 
we  are  helping  a  "giant  monopoly  "  to  "crush  out"  the 
self-respecting  retailer,  and  every  time  we  undertake 
what  should  seem  to  be  the  legitimate  task  of  buying 
our  garments  as  cheaply  as  we  can,  we  are  engaged  in 
"grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor." 

This  must  not  be  understood  as  an  attempt  to  shield 
those  employers  who  consciously  and  deliberately  extort 
large  profits  out  of  the  necessities  of  the  workingman ; 
such  employers  have  existed  and  doubtless  still  exist. 
But  the  question  before  us  is  not  what  is,  but  what  must 
be;  in  other  words,  assuming  that  all  employers  were 
angels  of  light,  would  it  be  possible  for  them,  under  our 
existing  industrial  system,  very  much  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  the  workingman?  And  if  the  fault  be  not 
in  the   employer  but  in  ourselves,   who  constitute  the 

1  Although  competition,  by  tending  to  lower  prices,  tends  to  lower  wages, 
wages  can  nevertheless  be  raised  without  necessarily  compelling  a  rise  in 
prices.  This  important  fact  is  fully  recognised  later  on.  It  is  not  dwelt 
on  here  because  it  does  not  affect  the  argument  here.  Within  limits 
increase  of  wages,  by  rendering  service  more  effectual,  does  not  neces- 
sitate a  rise  in  prices ;  indeed,  under  certain  favourable  conditions  it 
permits  of  lower  prices.  This  does  not  prevent,  however,  the  application 
of  the  general  law  that,  by  and  large,  competition  in  lowering  prices 
tends  to  lower  wages  ;  that  this  tendency  is,  under  certain  conditions,  the 
cause  of  sweating  ;  and  that,  if  the  tendency  has  been  partially  coun- 
teracted by  labour  organisation,  there  is  a  limit  to  the  beneficial  action 
of  such  organisation.  Indeed,  it  is  probable  that  in  some  industries  this 
limit  has  already  been  reached.  It  is  because  the  limit  has  been  reached 
in  them  that  workingmen  are  endeavouring  to  prevent  foreign  competition 
by  international  organisation.  But  even  if  such  an  international  organi- 
sation can  be  rendered  effectual,  how  will  it  remain  so  when  we  shall  have 
taught  the  Mongol  to  compete  with  us  ? 

8 


114  INDIVIDUALISM 

Market  or  the  Demand,  let  us  assume  that  we,  too,  are 
angels  of  light,  and  let  us  see  whether  under  the  exist- 
ing conditions  we  could  very  much  improve  the  condi- 
tions of  the  workingman.  And  of  these  two  social 
criminals  let  us  begin  with  ourselves.  Are  we  wrong 
in  trying  to  buy  cheaply? 

Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that  you,  reader,  are  a 
public-school  teacher;  you  and  your  parents  have  made 
great  sacrifices  in  order  to  secure  the  certificate  which 
will  qualify  you  to  enter  into  the  honourable  career  of 
educating  your  fellow-creatures ;  no  career  can  be  more 
pregnant  of  good  or  bad  results  than  this.  If  you  are  a 
fit  person  by  your  knowledge,  your  character,  and  your 
example,  to  make  good  citizens  of  the  children  put 
under  your  care,  you  will  be  accomplishing  as  great  a 
work  as  any  man  or  woman  in  the  world.  Let  us  as- 
sume that  you  are  perfectly  conscious  of  the  magnitude 
of  your  task  and  are  bent  on  performing  your  duty  in 
conformity  with  its  highest  ideals.  For  years  you  have 
striven  hourly  to  attain  those  qualifications  which  will 
entitle  you  to  your  teacher's  certificate ;  nothing  in  the 
world  has  seemed  to  you  of  as  much  importance  as  this ; 
the  desire  for  it  has  made  every  sacrifice  easy;  and 
the  fear  of  missing  it  has  cost  you  hours  of  slee})less 
anxiety.  At  last  your  toils  have  been  rewarded ;  you 
have  passed  the  ordeal,  and  the  certificate  is  yours. 
Many  of  those  who  have  worked  by  your  side  have  fallen 
by  the  way;  you  have  seen  them  drop  off  one  by  one. 
Illness  has  stood  in  the  way  of  some ;  the  necessity  of 
earning  bread  in  that  of  others;  and  the  same  liigh 
hopes  that  have  animated  you,  you  have  seen  in  others 
sink  into  discouragement.  You  have  been  sorry  for 
your  less  successful  competitors,  but  the  necessities  of 
your  own  case  have  forced  you  on  tlie  road  too  strenu- 
ously to  permit  of  your  devoting  much  time  to  consol- 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         115 

ing  those  less  prosperous  than  yourself.  And  now  the 
goal  of  your  long  race  has  been  attained ;  you  have  your 
certificate,  and  you  may  at  last  get  at  your  work. 

But  here  you  meet  with  your  first  check.  Of  those 
who  started  in  the  race  with  you,  some  hundreds,  it  is 
true,  have  already  fallen  by  the  way;  but  there  still 
remain  thousands  in  the  field.  You  are  not  the  only 
one  who  has  secured  a  certificate,  and  for  the  first  time 
you  are  confronted  with  a  fact  of  which  up  to  this  you 
have  been  only  dimly  conscious,  —  namely,  that  although 
there  is  a  very  strict  limit  to  the  number  of  teachers' 
places  to  fill,  there  is  practically  no  limit  to  the  num- 
ber of  teachers  able  and  eager  to  fill  them.  You  now 
pass  through  a  long  and  weary  period  of  waiting.  Sin- 
gular phenomenon !  Here  you  are,  fully  equipped,  you 
and  some  thousands  of  others,  to  perform  the  highest 
task  that  it  can  be  given  to  a  man  or  woman  to  do ;  con- 
fronted with  still  more  countless  thousands  of  children 
who  are  growing  up  into  bad  citizens  for  lack  of  the 
very  teaching  you  are  so  peculiarly  and  laboriously  fitted 
to  give  them;  and  neither  may  you  teach  nor  they  be 
taught ! 

With  a  sense  of  the  injustice  of  these  conditions  rank- 
ling in  you,  slowly  the  high  hopes  you  once  entertained 
dwindle,  peak,  and  pine;  the  expectations  you  once 
entertained  of  a  permanent  position  somewhere  near  your 
family,  a  fixed  income,  and  an  eager  class,  give  way  to 
a  willingness  to  accept  any  place,  however  temporary, 
however  underpaid,  by  which  you  can  relieve  your  par- 
ents of  the  now  intolerable  burden  of  your  support.  At 
last  your  patience  is  rewarded ;  you  are  offered  a  posi- 
tion in  a  summer  school  during  the  summer  months  at 
five  dollars  a  week.  This  remuneration  will  hardly  pay 
your  board,  but  it  will  be  a  beginning  and  will  relieve 
your  parents   for  a  time.     There  is   still,  however,  a 


116  INDIVIDUALISM 

difficulty  to  overcome;  now  that  you  have  secured  a 
place,  you  must  be  respectably  garmented;  you  must 
present  an  object-lesson  of  neatness  and  refinement;  in 
other  words,  you  must  buy  clothes.  Once  more  you 
must  make  an  inroad  into  your  parents'  ever-diminish- 
ing hoard ;  you  make  your  list  of  the  things  you  need ; 
anxiously  you  price  the  articles  on  your  list;  anxiously 
you  figure  up  the  total ;  it  is  more  than  you  can  afford. 
Then  begins  the  task  of  cutting  down  the  list  and  of 
comparing  prices.  In  a  few  days'  shopping  you  learn 
just  where  you  can  make  most  saving  on  every  item ; 
and  between  the  limits  imposed  upon  you  by  a  crushing 
necessity,  between  the  total  hoard  which  your  parents 
can  scrape  together  on  the  one  side  and  your  duty  to 
your  class  on  the  other,  there  is  but  one  solution,  —  the 
low  prices  of  the  department  store.     Are  you  free  ? 

And  what  is  true  of  you  is  true  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  who  is  striving  to  emerge  or  keep  out  of  the 
ranks  of  pauperism  and  of  crime  ?     Are  they  free  ? 

But  now  let  us  suppose  that  good  fortune  comes  to 
you.  A  rich  uncle  has  died  and  left  you  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars ;  you  have  suddenly  become  a  capital- 
ist; you  have  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  invest. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it? 

Your  experience  has  taught  you  that  the  supply  of 
teachers  is  far  in  excess  of  the  demand ;  if  you  continue 
to  teach,  you  are  taking  the  bread  out  of  the  mouth  of 
some  one  in  the  desperate  position  out  of  which  you  have 
just  emerged.  This  you  will  not  consent  any  longer 
to  do ;  you  abandon  teaching  for  the  time,  and  you  con- 
ceive the  idea  of  investing  your  money  in  such  a  way  as 
to  produce  more  income  than  you  need,  so  that  you  can 
have  some  surplus  to  devote  to  the  comfort  of  your 
parents  and  to  the  well-being  of  those  about  you. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         117 

Just  as  you  have  come  to  this  conclusion  a  favour- 
able opportunity  for  investing  occurs.  You  are  intro- 
duced to  a  firm  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  Key 
West  cigars ;  and  you  are  told  that  they  need  the  sum 
of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  order  to  avail  them- 
selves of  a  singularly  advantageous  opportunity.  Their 
cigars  are  now  made  at  a  factory  which  they  lease  in 
Key  West,  the  rent  of  which  forms  a  considerable 
item  in  the  cost  of  their  goods.  The  lease  is  about  to 
expire,  and  they  have  received  a  proposition  from  cer- 
tain owners  of  real  estate  at  Tampa,  which,  if  accepted, 
will  greatly  diminish  the  cost  of  manufacture  and  in- 
deed add  to  profits  in  no  small  degree.  The  proposition 
is  as  follows :  — 

A  group  of  property-owners  in  Tampa,  being  anxious 
to  bring  industries  to  that  town  in  order  thereby  to 
enhance  the  value  of  their  real  estate,  offer  to  build  a 
factory  for  A.  B.  &  Co.  as  big  as  the  one  they  now 
occupy  at  Key  West,  and  to  deed  this  factory  to  A.  B. 
&  Co.,  together  with  fifty  acres  of  land,  provided  A.  B. 
&  Co.  will  move  their  industry  from  Key  West  to 
Tampa.  It  is  expected  that  A.  B.  &  Co.  will  build  on 
the  fifty  acres  deeded  to  them  for  this  purpose  cottages 
for  their  workmen ;  and  it  is  calculated  that  they  could 
at  once  rent  three  hundred  cottages  to  their  workmen  at 
$12  a  month  each,  or  $360  a  year.  The  cottages  will 
cost  $300  each;  a  sum  of  $90,000,  therefore,  is  needed 
for  this  purpose,  and  a  margin  of  $10,000  is  recom- 
mended. A.  B.  &  Co.  cannot  take  such  a  sum  out  of 
their  business  without  crippling  it.  But  if  you  will 
invest  this  sum  of  $100,000  in  their  business,  they  will 
take  you  into  partnership  with  them,  and  thereby  avail 
themselves  of  the  offer  made  by  the  Tampa  citizens. 
The  advantages  of  this  proposition  are  obvious;  they 
would  be  relieved  of  the  necessity  of  paying  a  high  rent 


118  INDIVIDUALISM 

for  their  factory,  and  they  will  receive,  on  the  contrary, 
high  rent  from  their  employees,  upon  whom  propinquity 
to  the  factory  and  the  difficulty  of  securing  accommoda- 
tions elsewhere  in  Tampa  will  practically  impose  the 
necessity  of  occupying  the  cottages  built  for  them. 

After  carefully  examining  the  situation  you  are  con- 
vinced that  A.  B.  &  Co.  are  doing  a  thriving  business, 
that  they  stand  high  in  commercial  circles,  and  that  you 
cannot  better  invest  your  funds. 

You  consult  your  lawyers,  and  are  advised  (for 
reasons  which  seem  sound,  but  which  you  are  not  alto- 
gether able  to  understand)  that  it  is  wise  to  convert 
the  firm  into  a  stock  company,  under  the  laws  of  West 
Virginia;  and  after  the  necessary  formalities  have  been 
complied  with  you  become  a  stockholder  to  the  extent 
of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  the  A.  B.  Company. 
The  offer  of  the  Tampa  citizens  has  been  accepted,  and 
the  construction  of  the  buildings  is  at  once  entered 
upon. 

It  has  also  been  explained  to  you  that  the  move  to 
Tampa  will  be  attended  by  another  incidental,  but  no 
less  for  that  reason  important,  advantage.  There  is 
considerable  discussion  as  to  the  appraisal  of  Havana 
tobacco.  You  are  told  that  certain  tobacco  known  as 
"fillers"  pays  a  duty  of  only  thirty-five  cents  a  pound, 
whereas  another  grade  of  tobacco  known  as  "  wrappers  " 
pays  one  dollar  and  eighty-five  cents  a  pound ;  and  there 
is  great  discussion  as  to  just  what  tobacco  shall  be 
entered  as  "fillers"  and  what  as  "wrappers."  On  this 
subject  you  are  informed  that  the  appnuser  at  Tampa  is 
much  more  liberal  to  importers  than  the  appraiser  at 
Key  West,  and  it  is  obviously  an  economy  to  pay  one 
dollar  and  eighty-five  cents  a  pound  upon  as  little  to- 
bacco as  possible. 

It   is   estimated   that   constructing   the  buildings  at 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         119 

Tampa  will  take  about  six  months ;  but  before  a  month 
has  elapsed  you  are  confronted  by  the  wages  problem 
in  the  shape  of  a  strike  at  the  Key  West  factory.  Upon 
inquiry  you  find  that  the  employees  are  for  the  most 
part  Cubans  who  live  in  a  state  of  degradation  and  filth. 
The  wages  they  receive  are  not  sufficient  to  permit  of 
any  better  conditions;  but  when  you  calculate  how 
much  you  can  afford  to  raise  wages,  you  will  be  surprised 
to  find  that  any  rise  which  could  materially  benefit  or 
sensibly  improve  the  condition  of  the  cigar-makers  would 
not  only  eat  up  the  margin  of  profit,  but  even  impair 
capital.  A  close  examination  of  the  prices  obtainable 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  necessary  expenses  on  the  other, 
presents  the  following  condition  of  things. 

The  price  that  can  be  obtained  for  cigars  is  screwed 
down  by  competition  to  one  which  barely  leaves  a  profit 
upon  the  goods  manufactured  on  average  years;  and  it 
is  only  on  the  condition  of  making  and  selling  an  enor- 
mous quantity  of  goods  that  a  remunerative  profit  can 
be  assured.  For  example,  the  average  profit  made  on  a 
single  cigar  is  less  than  one  cent,  or  about  .975  of  a  cent; 
that  on  a  hundred  cigars  is  97-^  cents ;  that  on  a  thou- 
sand, $9.75;  that  on  a  million  is  $9,750.  Obviously, 
then,  no  manufacturer  can  earn  a  living  who  only  sells 
hundreds;  in  order  to  get  rich  he  must  sell  millions. 
This  may  seem  a  big  profit;  but  unfortunately  it  is  sub- 
ject to  the  accident  of  crops.  When  the  tobacco  crop 
is  productive,  these  figures,  and  even  better,  are  ob- 
tained; but  when  the  crop  is  poor,  not  only  is  this 
profit  diminished,  but  it  even  sometimes  disappears. 
In  1879  the  crop  was  so  bad  that  many  manufacturers 
were  ruined.  Indeed,  this  has  happened  often;  and  the 
element  of  risk  involved  is  one  against  which  manufac- 
turers must  provide  by  securing  an  extra  profit  on  pros- 
perous years. 


120  INDIVIDUALISM 

In  any  case  a  large  manufacturer  has  every  advantage ; 
because  he  buys  large  quantities  of  tobacco,  he  com- 
mands a  better  quality  of  tobacco  at  a  lower  price ;  be- 
cause he  deals  with  large  sums  of  money  his  credit  is 
well  known  and  proportionally  high ;  he  can  thus  secure 
good  terms,  or,  in  other  words,  by  the  value  of  his 
credit  his  capital  is  increased  tenfold.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  sale  of  his  goods  he  has  a  corresponding 
advantage.  He  deals  with  the  largest  firms,  who  give 
the  largest  orders;  and,  having  a  large  amount  at  his 
disposal,  he  can  spend  large  sums  in  advertising  and 
salesmen's  commissions. 

When,  however,  appalled  by  the  enormous  sums  spent 
in  advertising  and  salesmen's  commissions,  you  propose 
to  diminish  this  expenditure  and  apply  the  amount 
thereby  saved  in  increasing  the  wages  of  the  work- 
ingmen,  you  are  met  by  the  positive  assurance  that 
experience  has  demonstrated  the  necessity  of  large  ex- 
penditures of  this  kind.  It  is  only  by  covering  immense 
wall  spaces  wdth  the  names  of  your  brands,  and  by  im- 
pressing these  names  upon  the  imagination  and  memory 
of  the  public  through  every  conceivable  device,  however 
costly,  that  you  can  secure  and  maintain  the  demand 
for  your  goods  which  permits  you  to  sell  on  the  large 
scale  necessary  to  pay  the  expense  of  manufacture. 
Once  more,  then,  you  are  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
it  is  not  the  capitalists  that  are  masters  of  the  subject  of 
wages;  but,  on  the  contrary,  you  stand  between  the 
necessar}'  cost  of  manufacture  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
prices  determined  by  competition  on  the  other. 

If  you  are  concerned  with  the  fate  of  the  Cuban  work- 
ingman,  you  will  be  told  that  he  is  accustomed  to  the 
life  he  leads  and  would  be  no  happier  with  a  higher 
wage;  that  the  strike  cannot  last  longer  than  a  few 
weeks,  as  there  is  an  unlimited  supply  of  other  cigar- 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         121 

makers  to  draw  from ;  and  you  learn  that  the  question 
of  wage  is  not  a  matter  of  humanity,  but  one  of 
compulsion. 

A  few  weeks,  during  which  you  try  to  harden  your 
heart  to  the  suffering  which  the  strike  is  occasioning  in 
Key  West,  suffice  to  contirm  the  opinion  of  your  part- 
ners that  the  strike  cannot  last  long.  The  importation 
of  a  few  hands  eventually  brings  back  such  of  the  other 
employees  as  you  are  willing  to  receive,  and  the  manu- 
facture proceeds  upon  the  old  wage ;  but  it  has  left  dis- 
satisfaction, and  the  next  news  from  Key  West  is  that 
the  factory  has  burned  down.  This,  of  course,  should 
not  involve  any  loss,  for  your  partners  have  taken  the 
precaution  to  insure ;  but  there  are  losses  which  insur- 
ance cannot  cover;  such,  for  example,  as  the  loss  arising 
from  the  inability  to  fill  orders,  and  from  the  fact  that 
the  proceeds  from  the  sale  of  goods  ordered  are  no  longer 
available  to  meet  the  notes  which  have  been  issued  for 
raw  material,  etc.  Moreover,  the  insurance  company  is 
persuaded  that  the  fire  comes  at  a  specially  opportune 
moment  for  your  firm;  it  is  impossible,  they  say,  to 
move  goods  from  Key  West  to  Tampa  and  to  interrupt 
the  business  for  the  time  necessary  for  this  process 
without  considerable  loss  of  time,  of  interest,  and  of 
actual  money.  It  would  be  a  much  easier  plan  to  burn 
down  the  factory  and  collect  immediately  insurance  on 
the  whole  amount  of  material  stored  therein,  especially 
if  a  little  careful  book-keeping  can  make  the  amount 
of  stock  burned  appear  more  than  it  really  was ;  and  so 
the  insurance  companies  decline  to  pay  insurance  until 
they  investigate.  The  very  temper  on  the  part  of  the 
striking  workingmen  which  set  fire  to  the  factory  is  at 
the  disposal  of  the  insurance  company  to  fabricate  evi- 
dence to  your  disadvantage.  The  outcome,  therefore, 
is  that  instead  of  receiving  the  amount  of  your  loss  you 


122  INDIVIDUALISM 

are  left  with  a  heavy  indebtedness,  no  prospect  of  sales 
to  meet  the  same,  and  an  expensive  and  exasperating 
litigation. 

It  becomes  necessary,  notwithstanding,  to  purchase 
new  tobacco ;  and  the  resources  and  credit  of  the  firm 
are  strained  to  the  utmost  in  order  to  enable  this  neces- 
sary purchase.  The  new  tobacco  is  to  be  delivered  no 
longer  at  Key  West,  but  at  Tampa,  and  you  will  at 
any  rate  profit  now  from  the  more  favourable  conditions 
which  prevail  at  Tampa,  owing  to  the  liberality  of  the 
appraiser.  On  this  subject,  however,  you  find  your 
partners  unwilling  to  speak  wdtli  much  freedom,  and 
you  are  for  the  first  time  made  acquainted  with  a  doubt 
as  to  whether  the  appraiser  will  continue  to  entertain 
the  liberal  views  once  entertained  on  the  subject.  Upon 
further  investigation,  you  learn  that  the  appraiser  in 
Tampa  owes  his  position  to  the  influence  of  the  real- 
estate  men  to  whom  you  owe  the  land  upon  which  you 
are  building  your  new  factory.  If  the  suspicion  crosses 
your  mind  that  the  appraiser  is  in  the  pay  of  these  real- 
estate  owners,  you  put  it  aside  as  one  unworthy  of 
yourself  and  them ;  until  one  day  3-our  partners  find  it 
necessary  to  convey  to  you  the  fact  that,  the  appraiser 
having  struck  for  a  higher  rate  of  remuneration,  the 
real-estate  men  have  called  upon  your  firm  to  pay  a  con- 
tribution thereto.  This  demand  you  of  course  refuse 
to  comply  Avith,  and  you  then  become  acquainted  with 
the  fact  that  such  a  refusal  is  regarded  by  your  part- 
ners as  quixotic  and  unbusinesslike.  The  question  is 
dropped,  and  it  is  not  until  you  examine  the  accounts 
at  the  end  of  the  year  that  you  find  you  have  been  un- 
willingly made  a  party  to  the  corruption  of  a  United 
States  official. 

Meanwhile  a  Spanish  governor-general  in  Cuba  has 
issued  an  edict  forbidding  the  exportation  of  tobacco, 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         123 

and  the  very  material  which  you  need  for  the  conduct  of 
your  business  is  thereby  refused  you.  On  the  other 
hand,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  resources  of  your  firm 
have  been  crippled  by  the  refusal  of  the  insurance  com- 
panies to  pay  the  loss  on  the  burning  of  the  factory,  you 
have  only  in  stock  just  enough  to  supply  your  existing 
needs ;  whereas  your  competitors,  who  have  been  antici- 
pating some  such  move  on  the  part  of  the  Spanish 
governor-general  in  Cuba,  have  supplied  themselves 
with  tobacco  in  sufficient  quantity  to  run  their  factory 
for  another  year.  In  this  critical  condition  of  things 
there  is  only  one  compensating  hope ;  namely,  that  this 
prohibition  of  the  exportation  of  tobacco  in  Havana  will 
raise  the  price  of  cigars  in  which  this  tobacco  enters. 
But  again  this  hope  is  disappointed ;  the  few  firms  who 
have  sufficient  tobacco  in  stock,  being  able  to  continue 
manufacturing  notwithstanding  this  order,  discern  in 
this  advantage  an  opportunity  for  crushing  out  your- 
selves and  all  other  less  wealthy  or  less  favoured  com- 
petitors. They  keep  their  prices  where  they  stood  before ; 
you  can  therefore  get  no  higher  prices  for  your  goods, 
and  the  moment  soon  arrives  when  you  can  no  longer 
fill  the  orders  which  you  at  so  great  an  expense  of 
advertising  and  salesmen's  commissions  secured.  Then 
ruin  stares  you  in  the  face ;  the  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars subscribed  by  you  for  the  purpose  of  building  the 
factory  and  workingmen's  houses  has  been  in  part 
employed  in  purchasing  tobacco.  The  workmen's 
houses,  therefore,  are  not  built,  no  income  is  derived 
therefrom,  and  the  closing  of  the  factory  is  imminent, 
owing  to  your  inability  to  obtain  tobacco.  Your  atten- 
tion is  thus  called  to  the  iniquity  of  Spanish  misgovern- 
ment  in  Cuba ;  to  the  ignoring  of  the  rights  of  American 
commerce  by  the  edict  against  the  exportation  of  to- 
bacco; to  the  fact  that  all  nations  have  proceeded  upon 


124  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  plan  of  protecting  their  commerce,  if  necessary,  by 
war;  to  the  facility  with  which  the  United  States  might 
at  any  time  put  an  end  to  Spanish  misrule,  and  to  the 
conditions  which  are  now  threatening  you  with  ruin. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  under  these  circumstances  you 
will  be  driven  by  the  necessities  of  your  position  to 
become  an  advocate  of  war. 

Within  the  space  of  a  few  months,  therefore,  the  mere 
possession  of  capital  has  forced  you  to  refuse  to  improve 
the  admittedly  degraded  condition  of  your  employees, 
to  become  a  silent  partner  in  the  corruption  of  a  United 
States  official,  and  to  advocate  the  shedding  of  human 
blood  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  interests  of 
trade. 

§  5.  The  Industrial  Results  of  Private  Prop- 
erty. —  Irregularity  of  Employment,  Coloni- 
sation, AND  War 

It  may  seem  as  though  the  conditions  which  brought 
about  the  failure  of  the  A.  B.  Co.,  are  exceptional ;  but  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  out  of  every  hundred  men 
who  start  a  new  business  an  average  of  ninety  are 
known  by  experience  to  fail ;  ^  and  there  is  not  one  of 
this  ninety  who  fail,  who  is  not  prepared  to  prove  that 
his  failure  was  due  to  conditions  that  were  exceptional. 
The  fact  is  that  commercial  competition  is  very  much 
like  that  of  nature,  in  that  we  have  before  us  only  the 
ten  per  cent  of  those  business  ventures  that  succeed, 
and  are  therefore  likely  to  lose  sight  of  the  ninety  per 
cent  that  fail.  In  otlier  respects,  too,  commercial  com- 
petition resembles  the  scheme  of  nature.     The  compe- 

1  United  States  commercial  agencies,  such  as  Bradstreet  and  Dun  & 
Co.,  which  publisli  records  of  insolvencies,  seem  to  prove  that  out  of  one 
hundred  new  business  ventures  about  ninety  per  cent  result  either  in 
bankruptcy  or  unprofitable  liquidation. 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        125 

tition  of  nature  is  indifferent,  cruel,  and  unjust;  and  it 
cannot  be  said  that  commerce  is  in  any  way  less  indif- 
ferent, less  cruel,  or  less  unjust.  Nor  could  it  be  other- 
wise ;  for  it  is  the  very  element  of  competition  in 
nature  which  man  started  out  in  his  struggle  with 
nature  by  political  and  social  institutions  to  coiTect; 
and  when  we  observe  that  in  so  far  as  man  has  failed  by 
his  social  and  political  institutions  to  eliminate  competi- 
tion, so  far  he  lias  maintained  the  injustice  and  cruelty 
of  nature  ;  whereas  in  so  far  as  he  has  by  his  institutions 
succeeded  in  replacing  competition  by  co-operation,  he 
has  effected  an  improvement  in  general  conditions,  — 
the  question  naturally  suggests  itself  whether  a  great 
part  of  the  unhappiness  which  attends  our  social  system 
may  not  be  due  to  the  fact  that  man  has  not  completed 
the  work  that  he  began. 

But  if,  reader,  there  remains  any  lingering  notion  in 
your  mind  that  the  case  I  have  imagined  is  an  excep- 
tional one,  let  me  ask  you  how  you  can  invest  your  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  without  becoming  a  partner  in  the 
industrial  system  and  to  that  extent  responsible  for  the 
injustice  which  it  unconsciously  involves.  If  your 
money  is  invested  in  real  estate,  you  become  a  partner  in 
the  fortunes  of  your  tenants ;  so  long  as  they  prosper 
your  rent  is  paid ;  but  the  moment  one  of  them,  however 
innocent,  ceases  to  prosper,  you,  by  evicting  him,  will  be 
giving  him  the  push  down  hill  which  tends  eventually 
to  land  him  in  the  poorhouse.  If  your  money  is  in- 
vested in  railroad  securities,  you  become  a  partner  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  road  in  the  securities  of  which  you  in- 
vest ;  when  it  has  to  crush  competition  by  cutting  rates, 
your  money  helps  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  process,  and 
your  money  therefore  contributes  to  the  ruin  of  the 
bondholders  of  the  competing  road ;  when  it  has  to 
secure  a  franchise  and  to  corrupt  a  legislature  to  this 


126  INDIVIDUALISM 

end,  your  money  goes  to  pay  the  bribe  ;  you  are  yourself, 
therefore,  unconsciously  guilty  of  the  very  degradation 
against  which  you  daily  protest.  If  your  money  is  in- 
vested in  industry  of  any  kind  you  are  made  thereby  the 
instrument  through  which  the  Market  —  the  irresponsi- 
ble but  none  the  less  merciless  Market  —  keeps  down 
the  wages  of  the  workingman ;  you  cannot  escape  this 
necessary  law  so  long  as  competition  remains  the  motive- 
power  of  the  industrial  machine.  If  you  are  to  keep 
your  capital,  you  must  sell  your  goods  at  a  profit ;  you 
must  lose  your  capital  if  you  sell  at  a  loss  ;  competition 
between  capitalists,  egged  on  by  the  perpetual  effort  of 
the  purchaser  to  buy  cheap,  keeps  prices  down  to  a 
minimum,  and  thus  the  needs  of  the  purchasing  poor 
keep  down  the  wages  of  the  working  poor,  one  part  of 
the  community  being,  under  this  system,  engaged  in 
crushing  other  parts  of  it. 

There  is  another  feature  of  the  competitive  system  to 
which  attention  cannot  be  too  closely  directed ;  namely, 
the  tendency  to  partial  ^  over-production  and  the  evils 
which  follow  in  its  wake,  —  irregularity  of  employment, 
colonisation,  imperialism,  and  war. 

When,  for  any  reason,  an  industry'  becomes  highly 
profitable,  capital  tends  to  flow  to  this  industry  and,  by 
competition,  to  lower  profits.  If  the  profits  were  unduly 
high  before  this  flow  of  capital  set  in,  the  lowering  of 
profits  would  be  a  good  thing  ;  but  the  flow  of  capital 

^  The  word  "partial"  is  used  in  connection  with  over-production  in 
order  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  approving  the  theory  of  recurring  periods 
of  general  over-production,  which  Kdward  Bellamy  has  popularised  in 
"  Equality,"  and  has  lately  received  the  more  weighty  supjwrt  of  J.  A. 
Hobson.  This  theory  does  not  seem  to  be  proven,  and  must  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  the  partial  over-production  here  explained.  The  extent 
to  which  competition  is  attended  by  over-production  is  illustrated  in  the 
liistory  of  our  principal  Trusts.     See  Appendix. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         127 

to  this  industry  generally  means  that  it  has  abandoned 
some  other  industry,  and  this  means  that  those  who 
worked  at  the  abandoned  industry  have  lost  their  em- 
ployment. It  is  true  that  the  capital  which  has  swelled 
the  profitable  business  will  employ  more  labour  in  the 
business,  but  the  labour  employed  will  in  most  cases  be 
different  from  that  thrown  out  of  employment,  and  a  con- 
siderable period  is  likely  to  elapse  before  those  thrown 
out  of  one  employment  can  fit  themselves  for  another. 

But  the  flow  of  capital  to  the  profitable  business  will 
by  competition  lower  profits  ;  every  manufacturer,  there- 
fore, in  the  business  will  have  an  interest  to  increase  the 
scope  of  his  business  so  as  to  make  up  by  an  increased 
number  of  transactions  for  diminished  profits  upon  each 
transaction  ;  and  as  he  increases  his  business  he  will 
become  alive  to  the  economies  which  attend  large  as 
compared  with  small  business,  economy  in  purchase  of 
raw  material,  economy  through  utilisation  of  waste  pro- 
ducts, facility  for  employment  of  improved  machinery, 
economy  of  distribution,  rebates  allowed  to  large  ship- 
pers, low  interest  charged  on  large  transactions,  etc. ; 
and  so  every  dollar  of  profit  not  required  for  expendi- 
ture remains  to  swell  the  business ;  capital  is  increased 
by  transformation  into  joint-stock  companies  ;  money  is 
borrowed  by  issues  of  bonds  ;  and  so  production  tends 
to  increase  until  the  demand  ceases  to  keep  pace  with 
it,  and  prices  go  down. 

Now,  if  we  want  to  be  accurate  we  must  say,  not 
demand,  but  effectual  demand.  Demand  in  political 
economy  does  not  mean  mere  desire  to  possess  a  thing, 
but  desire  to  possess  it  coupled  with  ability  to  pay  for  it 
a  price  at  least  equal  to  the  cost  of  manufacture.  Let 
us  suppose,  for  example,  that  there  has  been  over-pro- 
duction of  stockings  ;  more  stockings  have  been  made 
than  there  is  effectual  demand  for.     There  may  be  thou- 


128  INDIVIDUALISM 

sands  who  are  prevented  by  poverty  from  wearing  stock- 
ings ;  but  these  thousands  in  political  economy  do  not 
count  for  anything.  Unless  they  have  money  enough  to 
spare  for  the  purchase  of  stockings  at  cost  price,  their 
desire  to  wear  stockings  is  not  effectual ;  it  cannot  take 
the  stockings  off  the  hands  of  the  manufacturer  ;  and  in 
spite  of  a  real  need  for  stockings  in  the  community,  be- 
cause this  need  is  not  coupled  with  ability  to  pui'chase, 
the  manufacturer  of  stockings  has  to  shut  down  his  fac- 
tory. There  is  no  effectual  demand ;  there  is  a  real 
demand,  but  because  it  is  not  effectual  —  that  is  to  say, 
because  it  is  not  coupled  with  ability  to  purchase  — 
thousands  may  be  condemned  to  dispense  with  an  article 
of  clothing  important  in  our  climate  to  comfort  and  to 
health. 

One  of  the  treacherous  features  of  this  tendency  of 
production  to  outstrip  effectual  demand  is  that  it  is  ex- 
pressed only  in  diminution  of  profits,  and  one  of  the 
methods  for  fighting  diminished  profits  is,  as  just  shown, 
still  larger  production.  Manufacturers  tend,  therefore, 
to  continue  a  suicidal  extension  of  their  industries  at 
the  very  time  when,  if  wisely  informed,  they  would  on 
the  contrary  restrict  them. 

At  last  prices  fall  below  cost.  At  such  periods  the 
most  prosperous  mills  are  driven  to  cHscharge  a  part  of 
their  employees ;  those  which  are  less  prosperous  shut 
down  temporarily ;  and  others  shut  down  never  to  open 
again.  Thus  there  are  cast  upon  the  community  deserv- 
ing workingmen  anxious  to  work  and  unable  to  do  so. 

Recurring  periods  of  depression  in  each  industry  give 
way  in  time  to  new  periods  of  prosperity  through  the 
operation  of  several  causes.  In  the  hrst  jilace,  tlie  clos- 
ing of  factories  which  they  necessitate  reduces  the  pro- 
duction until  the  stock  of  goods  is  brought  into  proper 
relation  with  effectual  demand.     Tn  the  second  place, 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OP  INDIVIDUALISM        129 

gluts  sometimes  give  rise  to  legislation  in  the  shape  of 
protecting  tariffs  and  export  bounties,  which  by  shut- 
ting out  the  competition  of  the  foreigner  increases  the 
demand  for  home-made  goods;  and,  in  the  third  place, 
they  stimulate  the  search  for  foreign  markets  ;  for,  there 
being  no  demand  at  home,  manufacturers  who  are  carry- 
ing unsalable  stock  are  willing  to  sell  at  a  loss  abroad, 
and  are  therefore  able  to  undersell  competitors  in 
foreign  markets.^ 

The  tendency  of  gluts  to  stimulate  foreign  trade  must 
not  be  overlooked ;  for  over-production  drives  nations 
to  extend  their  market  by  forcing  goods  into  foreign 
lands.  The  morality  of  forcing  trade  upon  a  foreign 
people  at  the  cannon's  mouth  is  justified  by  necessity ; 
for  either  English  mills  must  shut  down  and  English 
workingmen  starve,  or  China  must  consent  to  buy 
England's  goods. 

The  necessity,  however,  under  which  industry  stands 
to  create  new  markets  for  its  goods,  owing  to  the  law 
that  production  perpetually  tends  to  outstrip  effectual 
demand,  has  a  result  which  has  not  yet  been  acutely 
felt ;  but  it  must  eventually  produce  serious  conse- 
quences. For  it  is  this  necessity  which  is  hastening 
the  work  of  colonisation  all  over  the  world,  at  a  fever- 
ish rate  of  speed.  The  manufacturer  must  sell  his 
goods ;  as  fast  as  his  production  outstrips  the  capacity 
of  his  fellow-citizens  to  buy  his  goods  he  seeks  to  create 
new  markets,  and  so  he  sends  out  the  missionary  first, 
the  trader  next,  and  the  soldier  eventually  after  him.^ 
The  prosperity  of  the  colony  thus  planted  by  ruse,  or 
violence,  or  both,  becomes  a  matter  of  vital  importance 

1  Some  excellent  illustrations  of  this  tendency  are  to  be  found  in  the 
testimony  taken  in  1899  by  the  Industrial  Commission.  They  have  been 
collected  in  a  footnote  to  the  Appendix  on  Trusts  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 

2  This  point  is  somewhat  more  fully  treated  under  section  7  of  this 
chapter,  sub  (b)  Militarism. 

9 


130  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  English  trade ;  it  stimulates  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion not  only  there,  but  in  England,  for  no  parent  need 
hesitate  to  bring  a  large  family  into  the  world  so  long  as 
there  is  a  livelihood  for  children  in  the  colonies  ;  and  so 
the  interests  of  manufacturers  are  continually  urging  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  to  breed  and  multiply  in  every  corner 
of  the  habitable  world.  Instead  of  the  self-restraint 
which  Malthus  piously  urged  upon  his  fellow-country- 
men, the  industrial  system  stimulates  an  incontinence 
which,  were  it  not  for  the  vast  unoccupied  spaces  still 
in  the  world,  would  be  reckless  in  the  extreme. 

And  yet  this  process  cannot  go  on  much  longer  with- 
out fatal  consequences.  Most  of  the  fertile  land  in  our 
own  continent  of  America  is  occupied ;  it  is  by  no 
means  sure  that  there  is  very  much  land  in  Africa 
which  can  be  occupied  by  white  men  until  they  have 
slowly  become  acclimated  thereto ;  and  at  the  rate  at 
which  2^opulation  is  now  increasing  under  the  perpetual 
stimulus  of  the  competitive  system  it  cannot  be  long 
before  all  the  habitable  vacant  spaces  in  the  world  will 
be  taken  up.  When  that  time  comes,  where  will  the 
competitive  system,  which  upon  the  profit  plan  tends 
to  produce  more  than  the  community  can  pay  for,  find 
new  markets  ?  For  there  will  then  be  neither  foreign 
markets  to  conquer  nor  colonies  to  plant;  nor  indeed 
will  there  be  any  outlet  by  emigration  for  tlie  un- 
employed. Indeed,  when,  in  our  eagerness  to  secure 
Chinese  trade,  we  shall  have  taught  the  Chinaman  liow 
to  compete  with  us,  China,  instead  of  furnishing  us 
with  a  new  market,  will  constitute  the  most  dangerous 
and  relentless  of  our  competitors  ;  for  the  Chinaman  can 
work  effectually  on  food  which  will  not  support  life  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon ;  and  of  Chinamen  there  are  believed 
to  be  over  three  hundred  millions.  The  disaster  which 
will  then  bring  the  starving  workman  face  to  face  with 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         131 

a  glutted  market  can  lead  to  but  one  result.  For  some 
years  to  come  there  will  doubtless  remain  room  for 
emigration  in  Australia,  America,  and  Africa ;  and  the 
most  dangerous,  because  the  most  active,  can  be  drafted 
away  from  the  swelling  and  threatening  masses  of  the 
unemployed.  But  when  this  resource  is  no  longer  open, 
and  the  unemployed,  eager  to  work  and  hungry,  find 
themselves  confronted  with  a  market  overflowing  with 
the  food  and  clothing  they  need  but  cannot  buy,  can 
there  be  any  result  but  one  ? 

These,  then,  are  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the 
present   competitive    system : 

First.  The  competitive  system  tends  to  produce  par- 
tial over-production. 

Second.  Over-production  produces  irregularity  of  em- 
ployment. 

Third.   Over-production  stimulates  colonisation. 

Fourth.    Colonisation  stimulates  population. 

Fifth.  Over-production  stimulates  conquest  of  foreign 
markets,  and,  — 

Sixths    consequently  promotes  war. 

Seventh.  When  there  are  neither  lands  to  colonise 
nor  markets  to  conquer,  over-production  is  likely  to 
result  in  violence  and  revolt. 

We  have  been  asking  ourselves  of  late  whether  we 
shall  take  the  Philippines  or  not,  unconscious  of  the 
relentless  goads  that  are  compelling  us  to  take  the 
Philippines  whether  we  will  or  Jiot.^  The  demand  for 
expansion  is  for  the  most  part  the  need  for  new  markets, 
which  is  being  felt  for  the  first  time  in  the  United 
States  by  the  large  number  of  voters  who  are  engaged 
in  industry.  It  clothes  itself  in  patriotism,  but  it  is 
probably  for  the  most  part  self-interest,  or,  rather,  self- 
preservation. 

1  Written  in  1898. 


132  INDIVIDUALISM 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  over-production,  when 
not  relieved  by  extending  foreign  trade,  is  mainly 
checked  by  the  tendency  of  capital  to  withdraw  from 
unprofitable  manufactures.  Now,  every  time  such  with- 
drawal takes  place  a  corresponding  number  of  workmen 
are  thrown  out  of  employment,  —  that  is  to  say,  are  sub- 
jected to  want  and  the  anguish  of  anxiety.  The  evil  of 
this  system  cannot  be  explained  away  by  pointing  out 
that  the  capital  withth-awn  from  one  manufacture  will 
soon  be  reinvested  in  another.  A  cotton-spinner  can- 
not in  a  week  or  a  month  become  a  boiler-maker.  The 
commercial  system  which  makes  it  easy  for  a  capitalist 
to  maintain  income  at  the  cost  of  agony  to  the  working- 
man  does  not  recommend  itself  to  the  political  student 
who  is  seeking  for  the  establishment  of  Justice  in 
economic   conditions. 

Those  who  approve  of  the  existing  competitive  system 
point  with  admiration  to  the  natural  adjustment  which 
takes  place  eveiy  time  economic  conditions  are  thrown 
out  of  prosperous  equilibrium.  If  too  much  capital 
flows  into  one  industry,  they  say  the  fact  is  promptly 
revealed  by  (hminished  profits;  capital  then  promptly 
flows  away  from  that  industry  into  industries  which  by 
the  high  profits  realised  indicate  their  need  of  more 
capital ;  and  so  capital  is  always  tending  by  its  fluidity 
to  maintain  a  "  natural,"  "  static,"  or  normal  rate  of  profit. 
Rate  of  profit,  then,  is  the  barometric  signal  for  move- 
ment of  capital  to  and  from  the  industries  respectively ; 
the  system  moves  with  meteorologic  accuracy.  Even 
the  disturbances  produced  by  invention  of  machinery 
are  more  apparent  tlian  real.  Capital  flows  from  the 
old  industry  into  the  manufacture  of  machinery,  and,  so 
invested,  employs  labour ;  machinery  dhninishes  cost  of 
production,  conferring  thereby  a  benefit  on  the  consumer. 
This    increases    purchasing   power ;    every   increase    of 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         133 

purchasing  power  means  increase  of  demand  ;  every  in- 
crease of  demand  means  encouragement  to  greater  pro- 
duction ;  capital,  therefore,  is  rendered  more  productive 
by  every  new  machine,  and  ultimately  is  enabled,  by 
increased  production  and  increased  demand,  to  employ 
more  labour.  All  this  is  perfectly  true.  The  fluidity 
of  capital  makes  it  possible  for  the  capitalist  for  the 
most  part  to  keep  his  money  invested  at  remunerative 
rates  of  interest  and  concomitantly  to  remain  engaged  in 
the  employment  of  labour.  The  working  of  the  system 
is  that  of  a  beautifully  devised  machine,  and  as  such  is 
worthy  of  the  admiration  bestowed  upon  it,  provided 
we  only  look  at  it  from  the  capitalist's  point  of  view. 
Unfortunately  labour  is  not  as  "  fluid  "  or  insensible  as 
capital.  The  workingman  is  a  human  being  with  the 
capacity  for  pain  and  for  anxiety  that  characterises  our 
race ;  and  every  time  that  capital  profits  by  its  fluidity 
to  flow  from  one  industry  to  another,  the  lives  of  men, 
women,  and  children  are  threatened  by  want  and  their 
hearts  wrung  by  fear.  If  the  competitive  system  were 
the  only  possible  economic  system,  then  we  should  have 
to  resign  ourselves  to  these  pitiable  conditions  ;  but  if  it 
is  not  the  only  possible  economic  system,  —  if  another 
system  can  be  proposed  which  is  free  from  these  condi- 
tions, —  is  it  not  well  that  we  should  study  this  last 
with  the  utmost  care  ? 

The  present  industrial  system  has  in  one  sense  the 
disadvantage  of  being  highly  artificial,  —  for  it  is  the 
creation  of  man,  not  of  nature ;  and  in  another,  the  ad- 
ditional disadvantage  of  resembling  a  natural  method 
observable  in  the  human  body  which  is  peculiarly  open 
to  criticism  for  the  systematic  pain  which  it  involves : 
if  a  cinder  falls  into  the  eye,  the  sensory  nerves  are 
stimulated  by  the  pain  occasioned  to  such  a  point  as 
to  produce  tears  of  anguish,  through  which  the  cinder 


134  mDIVIDUALISM 

is  washed  out  of  the  eye.  The  process  is  as  automatic 
as  the  flow  of  capital  from  one  industry  to  another ; 
but  it  is  not  one  that  we  would,  if  we  had  the  choice, 
deliberately  adopt.  We  have  tolerated  the  competitive 
plan  in  great  part  because  the  pain  involved  in  tem- 
porary loss  of  profit  is  to  a  capitalist  comparatively 
small,  and  capitalists  have  had  up  to  the  present  time 
the  making  of  our  laws  and  economic  institutions. 
But  a  change  has  of  late  come  over  our  political  con- 
ditions. The  workingman,  upon  whom  the  torment  of 
the  process  really  falls,  is  learning  to  use  his  political 
power.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  will 
long  consent  to  endure  conditions  which  necessarily 
impose  the  burden  of  every  economic  strain  upon  him- 
self.    Is  it? 

We  must  not  leave  the  subject  of  industrialism  with- 
out pointing  out  a  few  other  attending  circumstances. 

As  production  tends  to  outstrip  consumption,  every 
manufacturer  is  driven  to  the  necessity  of  pushing  the 
sale  of  his  goods  and  endeavouring  to  secure  as  large 
a  share  of  the  diminishing  market  as  possible  for  him- 
self at  the  expense  of  his  competitors.  The  effort  to 
sell  goods  necessitates  the  employment  of  commercial 
travellers,  whose  business  it  is  to  bring  home  to  the 
public  the  superiority  of  the  goods  they  have  to  sell 
over  similar  goods  in  the  same  market.  The  com- 
mercial traveller  is  remunerated  by  a  commission  on  the 
sales  he  effects,  and  is  given  thereby  a  direct  interest 
in  appreciating  the  goods  he  is  selling  and  depreciating 
the  goods  of  competing  manufacturers  ;  the  lies  wliich 
he  is  by  this  system  induced  to  tell  are  sanctioned  by 
a  maxim  of  our  law,  —  the  admittedly  immoral  maxim, 
"  caveat  emptor ;  "  and  the  lies  which  tlie  commercial 
traveller  tells  are  spread  in  still  more  glaring  charac- 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         135 

ters  over  wall  spaces  and  the  advertising  columns  of 
our  daily  papers. 

It  is  true  that  the  practice  of  lying  has  become  so 
universal  in  trade  that  the  deception  is  in  extent  much 
discounted ;  but  there  is  another  character  of  falsehood 
that  does  deceive,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  falsehood  of  fact 
implied  in  adulteration  and  scamped  work.     Thus  in 

1864  the  inspectors  of  factories  reported  that  export 
shirtings  weighing  eight  pounds  consisted  only  of  five 
and  a  quarter  pounds  of  cotton,  whereas  they  contained 
two  and  three  quarter  pounds  of  size  ;  another  weigh- 
ing five  and  a  quarter  pounds  contained  two  pounds 
of  size  ;  cloths  of  other  descriptions  contained  as  much 
as  fifty  per  cent  of  size.^ 

The  third  effect  of  competition  to  which  attention 
has  already  been  directed  is  to  reduce  wages.  At 
every  period  of  depression  not  only  are  workingmen 
thrown  out  of  employment  in  vast  numbers,  but  the 
employees  that  remain  are  obliged  to  submit  to  reduced 
wages ;  and  the  effect  of  the  reduction  of  wages  upon 
women  is  sufiiciently  set  forth  in  a  similar  report  for 

1865  in  the  following  words  :  "  Unfortunate  females, 
in  consequence  of  the  cotton  famine,  were  at  its  com- 
mencement thrown  out  of  employment,  and  have  there- 
by become  outcasts  of  society,  and  now,  though  trade 
has  revived  and  work  is  plentiful,  continue  members 
of  that  unfortunate  class  and  are  likely  to  continue 
so.  There  are  also  in  the  borough  more  youthful 
prostitutes  than  I  have  known  for  the  last  twenty-five 
years."  ^     And  so  it  turns  out  that  the  great  maxim 

1  Keport  of  Inspectors  of  Factories  of  1864,  p.  27. 

2  From  a  letter  of  Mr.  Harris,  Chief  Constable  of  Bolton,  in  Rep. 
of  Insp.  of  Fact.,  Oct.  31,  1865,  pp.  61,  62.  It  is  true  that,  notwith- 
standing this  tendency,  prostitution  seems  to  be  actually  on  the  decline  ; 
but  this  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  opportunities  to  women  for 
earning  money  are  largely  on  the  increase.  Prostitution  is  essentially 
a  question  of  economics.      Vide  book  ii.  chap.  iv.  §  2. 


136  INDIVIDUALISM 

of  trade,  "  Buy  in  the  cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the 
dearest,"  means  in  a  word  this,  —  that  the  necessity 
of  buying  cheap  brings  all  the  markets  in  the  world 
into  competition  with  one  another,  giving  the  greatest 
advantage  to  those  markets  in  which  the  lowest  wages 
rule  ;  ^  and  that  it  is  upon  the  workman,  therefore,  that 
the  burden  of  competition  for  the  most  part  falls.  Ob- 
viously the  labourer  alone  is  unable  to  hold  up  the 
rate  of  wages,  in  view  of  the  unlimited  store  of  work- 
ingmen  upon  which  the  capitalist  can  draw ;  and 
workingmen  would  to-day  be  living  on  starvation  wages 
were  it  not  for  the  intelligence  with  which  they  have 
combined  for  the  purpose  of  holding  their  own  against 
the  capitalist.  These  combinations  of  workingmen, 
however,  which  are  familiar  to  us  under  the  name  of 
Trade  Unions,  stand  between  two  fires :  in  the  first 
place,  their  efforts  to  raise  wages  are  limited  by  foreign 
competition  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  English  manufac- 
turer, yielding  to  the  demands  of  the  trade  unions, 
raises  wages  beyond  a  certain  limit,  he  will  be  unable 
to  hold  liis  foreign  trade  against  foreign  competitors 

1  It  may  be  objected  that  the  recent  success  of  American  goods  manu- 
factured at  a  high  rate  of  wages  disproves  the  truth  of  this  assertion.  The 
objection,  however,  is  not  well  founded :  American  experience,  shows  that 
within  certain  limits  labour  can  be  made  more  effectual  by  raising  wages. 
This,  however,  depends  upon  the  personal  e(]uation  of  every  race.  It  is 
none  the  less  true  that  the  day  the  Chinaman  is  taught  American  methods, 
his  undoubted  superiority  on  the  score  of  cheapness  of  living  will  enable 
him  to  manufacture  more  clicaply  than  the  American.  The  day  tliis 
happens  —  and  it  is  not  far  distant  —  shall  we  allow  the  American  work- 
man to  be  starved  out  of  existence  ?  Or  shall  we  seek  by  the  adoption 
of  a  less  wasteful  method  of  production  to  preserve  the  American  work- 
man from  the  Yellow  Peril  ?  Exclusion  of  tlio  ( 'Jiinese  will  not  save  the 
American  workman  ;  nor  will  protection  ;  for  Chinese  goods  will  shut 
out  American  goods  from  foreign  markets,  and  it  is  on  foreign  markets 
that  the  American  workman  is  already  beginning  to  depend.  We  need 
a  less  wastefid  system  of  jiroduction.  See  book  ii.  chap,  i.,  ou  Collec- 
tivism. 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM        137 

who  do  not  pay  equivalent  rates  for  equivalent  service ; 
and  the  inability  of  the  English  manufacturer  to  com- 
pete with  his  foreign  competitors  in  foreign  markets 
means  not  only  his  ruin,  but  the  ruin  of  his  working- 
men.  In  the  second  place,  the  trade  union  can  only 
operate  effectually  on  the  condition  of  absolute  obedi- 
ence on  the  part  of  its  members ;  and  to  the  necessity 
of  this  obedience  and  the  results  of  it,  it  may  be  well 
next  to  direct  our  attention. 


§  6.  The  Proletarian  CoMsmATioisr  against  Pri- 
vate Property.  —  Trade  Unions 

Trade  unions  have  undoubtedly  rendered  great  ser- 
vice :  they  have  proved  the  error  which  underlies  the 
wages  fund  theory ;  they  have  stripped  the  Malthusian 
menace  of  most  of  its  terrors  ;  they  have  demonstrated 
that  wao;es  can  be  raised  and  the  condition  of  the  work- 
man  vastly  improved  without  diminishing  the  cost  of 
his  work,  so  much  do  these  improvements  increase  his 
efficiency ;  and,  last  of  all,  they  have  furnished  to  the 
workman  a  school  of  political  experience  and  self-con- 
trol which  is  destined  eventually  to  be  of  inestimable 
value  to  the  community.  Nevertheless  it  must  be 
recognised  that  at  every  step  they  have  encountered 
problems  that  they  have  failed  to  solve,  and  the  effect  of 
this  failure  is  of  no  small  importance  in  demonstrating 
the  radical  evils  of  the  competitive  system. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  these  unsolved  problems  one 
by  one. 


138  INDIVIDUALISM 


UNSOLVED   PKOBLEMS   OF   TRADE   UNIONS 

(a)  Restriction  on  Trade 

First  in  order  comes  restriction  on  trade ;  such,  for 
example,  as  apprenticeship  and  the  attempted  exclusion 
of  boys  and  women. 

Apprenticeship  in  the  guilds  of  old  not  only  educated 
youths  for  the  trade,  but  also  restricted  admission  to  it. 
This  prevented  competition  amongst  workmen  by  only 
allowing  the  number  of  workmen  to  be  engaged  in 
every  craft  which  the  craft  could  support,  and  rigidly 
excluding  all  the  rest.  Trade  unions,  the  main  object 
of  which  is  to  maintain  a  standard  rate  of  wages,  were 
confronted  by  the  same  problem,  and  originally  adopted 
the  same  method.  They  soon  found,  however,  that  in 
most  trades  the  limitation  of  entrance  to  the  trade  by 
apprenticeship  was  impossible  ;  this  was  mainly  due  to 
the  fact  that  membership  in  trade  unions  was  not  com- 
pulsory for  all  persons  engaged  in  the  craft,  as  was 
membership  in  the  guild.  Trade  unions  have  for  the 
most  part  to  depend  upon  the  consent  of  the  workman 
to  belong  thereto,  and  have  no  power  to  prevent  groups 
of  men  encasred  in  the  same  trade  outside  of  one  trade 
union  from  organising  separate  trade  unions  of  their 
own.  Moreover  the  intimate  relation  of  markets  in 
different  parts  of  the  country  which  exist  under  modern 
conditions  makes  it  indispensable  that  a  trade  union, 
in  order  to  maintain  rates  of  wages,  should  at  least 
cover  the  entire  district  in  which  competition  between 
workmen  can  effectually  take  place ;  instead,  therefore, 
of  being  in  a  position  to  exclude  all  but  those  they 
choose  to  admit,  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  driven  to 
every  kind  of  persuasion,  and  sometimes  even  com- 
pulsion, in   order  to   induce  all  the  workmen  in  the 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        139 

trade  to  belong  to  the  same  trade  union.  When,  there- 
fore, the  compositors  found  that  men  were  able  to  enter 
the  trade  in  districts  outside  of  their  organisation,  such 
as  small  towns  where  no  organisation  could  be  main- 
tained, they  found  it  necessary  to  waive  their  principle 
of  apprenticeship  and  admit  "  illegal  men  "  in  order  to 
prevent  their  competition.  Engineers,  too,  found  that, 
owing  to  the  simplicity  resulting  from  improvements 
in  machinery,  men  could  enter  the  trade  without  ap- 
prenticeship, and  they  were  driven  to  relax  their  rules 
in  consequence. 

Nevertheless,  of  the  1,400,000  organised  workingmen 
in  England,  500,000  belong  to  trade  unions  which  still 
insist  upon  apprenticeship. 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  that  the  remaining  900,000, 
because  they  did  not  insist  upon  apprenticeship,  could 
properly  be  called  "  open  trades  ;  "  that  is  to  say,  trades 
in  which  there  was  no  restriction  of  membership.  But 
this  would  be  a  great  mistake :  it  would  be  mistaking 
form  for  fact ;  for  those  who  do  not  limit  entries  into 
a  trade  by  a  system  of  apprenticeship  restrict  it  in  an 
equally  effective  manner  by  maintaining  a  high  stand- 
ard of  wages  ;  for  no  employer  can  afford  to  pay  this 
high  rate  of  wages  to  any  but  the  best  workmen  ;  and 
the  trade  is  therefore  always  recruited  from  the  flower 
of  those  who  apply  for  entrance  to  it.  This  principle 
is  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  the 
competitive  system ;  but  it  is  injurious  to  general  wel- 
fare, for  it  throws  all  but  the  best  workmen  upon  the 
community  and  swells  the  ranks  of  sweated  industries 
to  which  reference  will  be  made  later.  In  effect,  there- 
fore, the  numbers  in  every  trade  are  almost  as  severely 
restricted  as  those  of  the  ancient  guild,  with  the  ad- 
vantage, however,  that  while  admission  to  the  guild  was 
a  matter  of  favour,  admission  to  a  trade  union  is  a  matter 


140  INDIVIDUALISM 

of  ability.  It  may  seem  at  first  sight  that  this  distinc- 
tion is  an  unadulterated  improvement ;  but  if  we  look 
at  the  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  general  wel- 
fare, it  will  be  seen  to  contain  an  element  of  serious 
danger;  for  whereas  under  the  guild's  system  some 
of  those  excluded  were  capable  of  earning  their  live- 
lihood elsewhere  if  opportunity  to  do  so  presented 
itself,  under  the  trade-union  system  the  weakest  are 
excluded,  and  therefore  those  least  able  to  earn  their 
livelihood  elsewhere.  Obviously,  therefore,  this  system 
not  only  furnishes  the  material  which  supplies  the 
sweated  trades  with  cheap  labour,  but  also  helps  to  fill 
our  roads  with  tramps  and  our  institutions  with  paupers 
and  criminals. 

The  repeated  attempts  made  to  exclude  boys  from 
work  which,  before  the  institution  of  machinery,  was 
performed  by  men,  present  another  problem  that  still 
remains  unsolved,  nor  does  it  seem  capable  of  solution 
under  the  competitive  system;  for  example,  in  the 
numerous  efforts  made  by  the  boot  and  shoe  trade  in 
England  to  exclude  boys,  the  workmen  have  been 
obliged  to  consent  to  their  being  used  in  "nursery 
goods  ;  "  for  the  reason  that  if  they  endeavoured  to  pre- 
vent it,  capitalists  engaged  in  the  business  would  sepa- 
rate into  two  classes,  —  those  who  could  profitably  employ 
men,  and  those  who  could  more  profitably,  because  they 
only  manufactured  nursery  goods,  use  boys  only ;  these 
last  would  then  entirely  escape  all  pressure  from  the 
trade  unions. 

The  attempt  to  exclude  women,  though  for  a  long 
time  persisted  in,  has  practically  failed ;  in  some  trades 
work  naturally  divides  itself  into  such  as  can  best  be 
done  by  men,  and  such  as  can  best  be  done  by  women, 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         141 

as,  for  example,  the  cotton  trade ;  in  this  trade  the  work 
requiring  most  strength  is  more  highly  paid  and  is  dis- 
tributed to  men,  and  the  work  requiring  less  strength 
is  paid  at  a  lower  rate  and  distributed  to  women.  But 
whenever  this  cannot  take  place,  as  in  the  making  of 
garments,  the  fact  that  women  are  often  partially  sup- 
ported from  sources  other  than  their  own  work,  and  that 
they  do  not  demand  the  same  standard  of  living,  makes 
their  competition  destructive  to  all  collective  bargain- 
ing, and  is  largely  responsible,  therefore,  for  the  so-called 
sweated  industries. 

If  now  we  pass  to  the  so-called  right  to  a  trade,  —  that 
is  to  say,  the  claims  which  shipwrights,  for  example,  have 
to  a  certain  class  of  work  in  the  building  of  ships,  and 
the  claims  of  joiners  to  some  of  the  same  work  as  that 
claimed  by  shipwrights,  —  we  shall  see  that  trade  unions 
are  involved  in  altercations  which,  as  the  authors  of 
"Industrial  Democracy"  say,  present  an  "apparently 
incomprehensible  problem ;  "  and  the  conflicts  which  rise 
from  these  sources  are  of  no  small  dimensions.  In  the 
industries  of  the  Tyneside  from  1890  to  1898,  they  put 
one  or  other  of  the  four  most  important  sections  of 
workmen  in  the  district  out  of  work  for  thirty-five 
weeks  in  the  space  of  thirty-five  months.  How  subtle 
are  the  distinctions  which  these  conflicting  claims  raise 
may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that,  although  shipwrights 
admit  that  joiners  may  line  with  wood  all  telegraphic 
connections  throughout  the  upper  part  of  the  ship,  they 
deny  them  the  right  to  do  this  through  cargo  spaces, 
coal  bunkers,  and  the  hold ;  so  that  "  in  a  job  of  only  a 
few  hours,  if  a  joiner  passes  this  magic  line,  the  whole 
of  the  shipwrights  will  drop  their  tools."  Nor  does  it 
seem  possible  to  find  any  basis  upon  which  the  claims 
of  these  rival  trades  can  be  settled.     They  cannot  be 


142  INDIVIDUALISM 

settled  upon  the  basis  of  custom,  because  each  party 
interprets  custom  in  a  different  way ;  they  cannot  be 
based  upon  the  tools  used,  for  whereas  fifty  years  ago 
shipwrights  were  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  they 
used  the  adze  and  the  mallet,  and  joiners  the  hammer 
and  the  plane,  to-day  all  four  tools  are  used,  together 
with  others  borrowed  from  the  glazier  and  cabinet-maker, 
on  the  deck  of  a  ship ;  they  cannot  be  based  upon  the 
material  used,  because  shipwrights,  joiners,  and  cabinet- 
makers all  work  in  wood,  shipwrights,  boiler-makers, 
engineers,  and  plumbers  all  work  in  iron.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  they  generally  resort  to  distinctions  of  thickness 
and  size ;  engineers  being  allowed  to  use  iron  pipes  of 
two  and  a  half  inches,  and  j)lumbers  iron  pipe  of  three 
inches ;  joiners  being  allowed  to  work  in  wood  of  one 
and  a  half  inches  thick,  and  work  in  greater  thickness 
of  wood  being  reserved  for  shipwrights,  and  so  on. 
These  distinctions  may  seem  trivial ;  but  upon  them  de- 
pend the  bread  of  the  various  trades  engaged  therein; 
and  unfortunately  the  arrangements  to  which  these  con- 
flicting trades  come  can  never  be  permanent.  The  con- 
flicts which  have  given  rise  to  them  all  result  from  the 
continual  change  produced  by  modern  improvements; 
these  changes  are  bound  to  go  on,  and  every  time  a 
change  occurs  it  affects  these  trades,  and  the  same  con- 
flict is  likely  to  recur. 

Again,  the  main  object  of  trade  unions  is  to  secure 
what  is  called  a  common  rule ;  that  is  to  say,  a  univer- 
sally applied  rate  of  wages  for  every  variety  of  work  in 
each  trade.  Their  success  in  obtaining  this  common 
rule  is  in  some  trades  remarkable,  as  may  be  seen  by 
glancing  over  tlie  piecework  lists  of  the  cotton  industry; 
but  the  establis1inu;nt  of  tlie  common  rule  involves  the 
necessity  of  limiting  tlie  work ;  in  other  words,  in  the 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        143 

place  of  the  freedom  with  which,  under  the  freedom  of 
contract  plan,  every  workman  was  entitled  to  compete 
with  other  workmen  not  only  in  the  amount  of  wages 
he  was  to  receive,  but  in  the  amount  of  work  he  fur- 
nished for  that  wage,  it  has  been  found  necessary  by 
the  trade-union  plan,  in  order  to  maintain  the  rate  of 
wages,  to  limit  the  amount  of  work  which  is  to  be  done 
for  these  wages.  I  think  the  authors  of  "Industrial 
Democracy"  have  a  little  undervalued  the  extent  to 
which  this  has  been  found  indispensable,  although  they 
have  been  very  frank  in  their  admission  of  it.  Some  of 
the  rules  attributed  by  them  to  the  folly  and  perversity 
of  trade  unions  are  worth  quoting  (pages  304,  305). 

The  fifth  by-law  of  the  Bradford  Lodge  of  the  Labour- 
ers' Union  of  1867  runs  as  follows :  "  You  are  strictly 
cautioned  not  to  outstep  good  rules  by  doing  double  the 
work  you  are  required,  and  causing  others  to  do  the 
same,  in  order  to  gain  a  smile  from  the  master."  And 
the  following  rule  of  the  Leeds  Lodge  of  the  Bricklay- 
ers Labourers'  Union  provides :  "  Any  brother  in  the 
Union  professing  to  carry  any  more  than  the  common 
number,  which  is  eight  bricks,  shall  be  fined  one  shil- 
ling, to  be  paid  within  one  month,  or  remain  out  of  the 
benefit  until  such  fine  be  paid." 

Nor  were  such  rules  entirely  confined  to  unskilled 
labourers.  The  Manchester  Bricklayers'  Association 
was  stated  in  1869  to  have  a  rule  providing  that 
"  any  man  found  running  or  working  beyond  a  regular 
speed  shall  be  fined  2s.  6d.  for  the  first  offence,  5s.  for 
the  second,  10s.  for  the  third,  and,  if  still  persisting, 
shall  be  dealt  with  as  the  Committee  think  proper." 
The  Friendly  Society  of  Operative  Stone-masons  adopted 
in  1865  the  following  rule :  "In  localities  where  that 
most  obnoxious  and  destructive  system  generally  known 
as  *  chasing '    is  persisted  in,  lodges  should   use  every 


144  INDIVIDUALISM 

effort  to  put  it  down.  Not  to  take  less  time  than  that 
taken  by  an  average  mason  in  the  execution  of  the  first 
portion  of  each  description  of  work  is  tlie  practice  that 
should  be  adopted  among  us  as  much  as  possible ;  and 
where  it  is  plainly  visible  that  any  member  or  other  in- 
dividual is  striving  to  overwork  or  '  chase  '  his  fellow- 
workmen,  thereby  acting  in  a  manner  calculated  to  lead 
to  the  discharge  of  members  or  a  reduction  of  their 
wages,  the  party  so  acting  shall  be  summoned  before 
the  lodge,  and,  if  the  charge  be  satisfactorily  proved,  a 
fine  shall  be  inflicted." 

Our  authors  admit  that  one  workman  can  underbid 
another  by  offering  more  work  for  the  same  wage  as 
well  as  by  offering  a  normal  amount  of  work  for  a  lower 
wage ;  and  if  this  be  the  case  it  is  clearly  as  necessary, 
they  say,  to  limit  the  maximum  of  the  work  to  be  fui-- 
nished  as  the  minimum  of  the  wage  to  be  received.  This 
is  done  in  every  trade,  for  even  the  piecework  trades 
have  found  it  necessary  to  limit  the  hours  and  to 
prohibit  overtime. 

The  success  of  trade  unions  has  not  prevented 
strikes.  The  published  list  shows  that  these  continue  to 
a  number  of  from  700  to  800  a  year ;  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion of  Labour  describes  the  change  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  character  of  the  strikes  in  the  following 
words  (page  221)  : — 

"  When  both  sides  in  a  trade  are  strongly  organised 
and  in  possession  of  considerable  financial  resources,  a 
trade  conflict,  when  it  does  occur,  may  be  on  a  very 
large  scale,  veiy  protracted,  and  very  costly.  But  just 
as  a  modern  war  between  two  great  European  States, 
costly  tliough  it  is,  seems  to  represent  a  liigher  state  of 
civilisation  than  the  incessant  local  fights  and  ])order 
raids  which  occur  in  tinjes  or  places  where  governments 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         145 

are  less  strong  and  centralised,  so,  on  the  whole,  an 
occasional  great  trade  conflict,  breaking  in  upon  years 
of  peace,  seems  to  be  preferable  to  continual  local 
bickerings,  stoppages  of  work,  and  petty  conflicts." 

It  may  be  a  comfort  to  the  Royal  Commission  to 
think  that  the  "  very  protracted  and  very  costly " 
strikes  should  have  been  substituted  for  "  local  bicker- 
ings," but  they  are  none  the  less  the  disastrous,  waste- 
ful, and  plainly  necessary  result  of  the  competitive 
system. 

(&)  Sweating 

Bad  as  they  are,  however,  they  represent  nothing  in 
the  shape  of  continuous  human  misery  which  can  com- 
pare with  the  so-called  sweated  parasitic  trades.  It  has 
been  already  pointed  out  that  the  system  which  recruits 
workmen  in  well-organised  trades  only  from  the  very 
best  who  present  themselves  for  admission  to  them, 
throws  upon  less  organised  trades  a  less  qualified  class ; 
and  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  women,  by  the  fact 
that  they  have  a  lower  standard  of  living  than  men,  and 
are  often  partially  supported  by  other  sources,  are  more 
willing  to  work  at  low  wages  than  men,  present  an 
element  of  weakness,  wherever  they  are,  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  high  standard  of  wages.  Now,  it  is  a  nec- 
essary result  of  the  competitive  system  that  wherever 
cheap  labour  can  be  obtained,  a  trade  will  be  found  to 
profit  by  that  labour ;  in  other  words,  because  this  cheap 
labour  is  available  for  certain  trades,  competition  com- 
pels these  trades  to  use  this  cheapest  labour.  Mr. 
Charles  Booth  bears  witness  to  this  in  the  following 
passage  :  — 

The  facility  of  obtaining  "  large  supplies  of  low- 
paid  labour,"  says  Mr.  Booth,  "may  be  regarded  as 
the  proximate  cause  of  the  expansion  of  some  of  the 

10 


146  INDIVIDUALISM 

most  distinctive  manufacturing  industries  of  East  and 
South  London, —  furniture,  boots  and  shoes,  caps,  cloth- 
ing, paper  bags,  and  cardboard  boxes,  matches,  jam,  etc. 
They  are  found  in  the  neighbourhood  of  districts  largely 
occupied  by  unskilled  or  semi-skilled  workmen,  or  by 
those  whose  employment  is  most  discontinuous,  since  it 
is  chiefly  the  daughters,  wives,  and  widows  of  these  men 
who  turn  to  labour  of  this  kind."  ^ 

The  select  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  describes 
the  condition  of  sweated  workmen  as  follows  (I.  D. 
p.  771) :  — 

"  Earnings  barely  sufficient  to  sustain  existence ; 
hours  of  labour  such  as  to  make  the  lives  of  the  workers 
periods  of  almost  ceaseless  toil,  hard  and  unlovely  to 
the  last  degree ;  sanitary  conditions  injurious  to  the 
health  of  the  persons  employed  and  dangerous  to  the 
public."  2 

In  these  two  quotations  we  see  the  cause  of  the  sweat- 
ing system  and  its  effect.  On  the  one  side,  a  population 
reduced  to  such  a  condition  that  it  cannot  exact  high 
wages,  attracting  to  itself  on  the  other  side  trades  that 
can  only  live  on  the  condition  of  low  wages,  both  re- 
sulting in  misery,  sickness,  and  destitution. 

There  is  a  feature  about  this  condition  of  things  to 
which  attention  has  not  been  sufficiently  called.  It  has 
been  so  much  the  custom  to  use  sentimental  lancfuafje  in 
order  to  arouse  sympathy  for  the  victims  of  this  system, 
that  we  have  ceased  to  give  to  this  language  of  senti- 
ment the  value  it  deserves  ;  for  example,  we  take  it  for 
granted  when  we  read  a  popular  book  on  the  sweating 
system  that  there  will  be  a  great  deal  in  it  about  "  white 

^  "Life  and  Labour  of  the  People."  (London)  vol.  ix.  p.  193.  Quoted 
"Industrial  Democracy,"  p.  757. 

2  Final  report  of  the  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  the 
sweating  system,  1890. 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         147 

slaves  "  and  "  grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor."  We  dis- 
count this  language  in  advance ;  it  has  been  used  so 
often  that  it  ceases  any  longer  to  reach  us.  This  is  a 
pity,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  condition  of 
sweated  workers  is  not  only  as  bad  as  that  of  slaves,  but 
in  one  respect  much  worse.  A  slave-owner  has  an 
interest  in  maintaining  the  health  and  vigour  of  his 
slaves,  and  will  not,  therefore,  overwork  them.  Just  as 
cab-owners  in  Paris  have  discovered  that  it  is  more 
profitable  to  feed  up  their  horses  than  to  overwork 
them,  slave-owners,  except  in  rare  cases,  have  found  it 
profitable  to  see  to  the  health  and  even  the  comfort  of 
their  slaves.  This  motive  does  not  exist  with  employers 
of  sweated  workmen ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  per- 
petually driven  by  competition  to  reduce  wages  to  the 
lowest  figure  possible,  and  are  therefore  prevented  by  the 
necessities  of  the  situation  from  having  any  concern  for 
the  well-being  of  their  employees,  even  if  they  would. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  financial  importance  to  them  how 
soon  the  sweated  workers  are  worn  out :  there  are 
always  plenty  of  others  to  take  an  empty  place  ;  they 
are  thus  cU'iven  to  employ  no  workers  but  those  who  are 
on  the  verge  of  starvation  and  therefore  most  willing  to 
work  at  any  price ;  and  they  are  also  driven  to  work 
these  wretches  to  death  because,  at  the  rate  of  wages 
that  they  can  afford  to  pay,  the  workers  can  earn  only 
enough  to  keep  alive  on  the  condition  of  working  more 
hours  of  the  day  than  any  human  frame  can  stand. 

This  condition  of  things,  upon  which  I  shall  not  trust 
myself  to  enlarge,  is  not  a  matter  as  regards  which  any 
individual  is  responsible.  It  is  the  inevitable,  necessary, 
and  fatal  result  of  the  competitive  system  ;  and  the  well- 
being  secured  by  a  favoured  class  of  workmen  through 
highly  organised  trade  unions  tends  to  increase  the 
sweated  population  rather  than  to  diminish  it. 


148  INDIVIDUALISM 

(c)  The  Unemployed 

Closely  connected  with  the  problem  of  the  sweating 
system,  and  indeed  a  necessary  part  of  it,  is  that  of  the 
unemployed,  —  the  final  dregs  of  the  population  which 
not  even  the  sweater  can  usefully  employ.  As  the 
authors  of  "  Industrial  Democracy  "  admit  (page  591), 
"  the  doctrine  of  a  living  wage  does  not  profess  to  solve 
the  problem  of  the  unemployed  or  the  unemployable." 

To  pretend  that  a  community  which  professes  to  frame 
its  institutions  with  a  view  to  justice  can  sincerely  put 
up  with  a  system  that  must  necessarily  result  in  such 
miseiy  as  this,  looks  a  great  deal  like  hypocrisy.  But 
there  is  a  more  serious  indictment  against  the  whole 
trade-union  system  than  this. 

The  authors  of  "  Industrial  Democracy  "  admit  that  a 
point  is  reached  in  every  trade  at  wliich  the  standard  of 
wages  can  no  longer  be  raised. 

"  To  put  it  concretely,"  they  say  (page  739),  "  when- 
ever the  percentage  of  the  unemployed  in  a  particular 
industry  begins  to  rise  from  the  three  to  five  per  cent 
characteristic  of  'good  trade,'  to  the  ten,  fifteen,  or 
even  twenty-five  per  cent  experienced  in  'bad  trade,' 
there  must  be  a  pause  in  the  operatives'  advance  move- 
ment." 

And  again  (page  450),  "The  trade  unionists,  in 
short,  like  the  majority  of  English  employers,  have 
hitherto  stood  helpless  before  the  inscrutable  ebb  and 
flow  of  demand,  and  have  accepted  as  inevitable  the 
corresponding  fluctuations  of  work." 

(jV)  The  Limitations  of  Trade  Unions 

The  ebb  and  flow  of  demand  is  not  "  inscrutable." 
It  obeys  a  law  as  certain  as  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide. 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        149 

England  is  engaged  in  competing  with  the  whole  civil- 
ised world  as  to  the  cost  at  which  she  can  produce  the 
goods  she  manufactures ;  and  as  she  produces  a  great 
deal  more  goods  than  her  own  people  have  money  to 
buy,  she  is  di'iven  to  fight  the  rest  of  the  world  in 
order  to  force  her  goods  upon  new  markets. 

"  What  you  Avant,"  says  a  London  comic  paper,  rep- 
resenting John  Bull  holding  up  before  a  Chinaman  a 
garment  made  by  sweated  workers,  "•  is  something  with 
pockets."  Up  to  the  present  time  and  during  the  last 
three  hundred  years  the  expansion  of  England  has  been 
continuous.  To  many  it  has  seemed  as  though  her 
trade  merely  kept  up  with  her  conquests.  To  a  more 
careful  observer  it  becomes  obvious  that  she  is  driven 
to  conquest  by  her  trade.  I  think  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  it  is  only  upon  the  condition  of  continuous  expan- 
sion and  continuous  conquest  that  trade  unions  have 
succeeded  in  securing  the  terms  they  now  enjoy.  Let 
that  expansion  stop,  and  the  trade  unions  will  immedi- 
ately fuid  themselves  confronted  by  the  "  inscrutable 
ebb  and  flow  of  demand  "  which  has  already  bid  them 
pause  ;  but  instead  of  being  an  ebb  and  flow  as  hereto- 
fore, the  movement  will  all  be  in  the  same  direction. 
Already  American  factories  compete  successfully  witli 
those  of  England  in  many  of  her  most  lucrative  branches 
of  trade ;  and  in  those  of  which  England  still  keeps 
control  the  difference  in  cost  is  almost  inappreciable. 
Under  these  circumstances  English  trade  seems  threat- 
ened in  both  directions  through  diminished  markets  on 
the  one  hand  and  underbidding  on  the  other.  When 
that  time  comes,  what  will  become  of  this  vast  organisa- 
tion of  trade  unions  ? 

But  American  competition  is  by  no  means  all  that 
Great  Britain  has  to  fear :  she  is  already  beaten  out  of 
many  markets  by  the  Germans  and  the  Japanese;  and 


150  INDIVIDUALISM 

it  is  certain  that  when  the  Chinese  are  driven  to  learn 
our  arts,  as  at  the  cannon's  mouth  we  are  now  compel- 
ling them  to  do,  they  will  not  only  manufacture  at  a 
lower  cost  for  themselves,  but  will  underbid  both  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  ;  for  of  all  the  races  in  the 
world  there  is  none  that  can  do  more  work  upon  less 
food  than  the  Chinaman.  The  trade-union  system, 
therefore,  is  a  successful  device  for  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  workingman  during  periods  of  expanding 
trade,  but  the  moment  contraction  sets  in,  the  whole 
system  seems  doomed  to  fall  to  the  ground. 

One  more  point  must  be  briefly  referred  to  here 
before  we  leave  the  unsolved  problems  of  trade 
unions.  It  is  dealt  with  more  at  length  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Liberty.^  The  guilds  were  broken  up  because 
they  constituted  exclusive  and  tyrannical  industrial 
rings.  They  differed  from  our  present  industrial 
system  mainly  in  the  fact  that  the  guild  included  the 
whole  industrial  class,  —  managers  as  well  as  managed, 
employers  as  well  as  employees.  This  combination 
maintained  prices  for  both ;  it  kept  up  liigli  wages  for  a 
few  workmen  at  the  cost  of  misery  to  the  mass  ;  and  it 
kept  up  high  prices  at  the  cost  of  the  consumer.  This 
double-headed  result  was  deemed  so  evil  for  the  com- 
munity that  guilds  came  to  an  end,  by  legislation  in 
France,  by  wholesome  competition  in  England.  Since 
tlieir  disappearance  the  industrial  world  has  slowly  gone 
round  the  same  weary  cycle  that  marks  the  movement 
of  man  in  other  fields.  The  destruction  of  the  guilds 
opened  the  era  of  freedom  of  contract,  or  in  otlier  words 
it  gave  free  rein  to  the  competitive  system.  Labour  was 
driven  in  self-protection  to  organise  trade  unions,  for 
the  purpose  of    raising  wages ;    capital  was  driven  by 

1  See  book  i.  cbaj).  v. 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         151 

these  labour  organisations  to  protect  itself  in  similar  asso- 
ciations to  keep  wages  down.  But  to-day  we  find  these 
two  hostile  ranks  coming  together  again  in  Birmingham 
in  so-called  "  alliances "  which  reproduce  the  essential 
feature  of  the  guild.  Employer  and  employee  are  re- 
united to  maintain  wages  for  the  few  at  the  expense  of 
the  many,  and  to  keep  up  prices  for  the  benefit  of  a 
handful  of  emjjloyers  at  the  expense  of  the  consumer ; 
that  is  to  say,  of  all  the  rest.  Are  we  to  move  round 
this  dreary  treadmill  for  ever? 

And  so  we  remain  the  dupes  of  selfishness.  Christ 
sought  to  rescue  us  from  it,  but  the  Church  He  instituted 
to  do  this  was  submerged  in  the  cesspool  of  the  decay- 
ing Roman  Empire.  Mohammed  began  a  new  effort 
against  it,  but  was  himself  and  all  his  followers  betrayed 
into  a  career  of  conquest ;  the  lofty  ideals  of  chivalry 
were  dragged  down  by  it  into  the  cours  (T amour ;  the 
Crusades  lapsed  into  commercialism,  and  while  commer- 
cialism rescued  us  from  the  avarice  of  the  crown,  it  de- 
livered us  over  to  the  tyranny  of  the  guild ;  and  in  our 
effort  to  escape  from  the  guild  we  have  swept  around 
the  circle  of  every  form  of  tyranny  till  we  have  got 
back  to  the  guild  again  in  the  guise  of  a  Birmingham 
alliance.  We  are  like  a  log  in  a  whirlpool :  a  fortunate 
accident  may  at  any  time  throw  it  out  of  the  whirl ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  remain  there  until  it  is 
ground  to  powder.  And  yet  over  and  over  again,  as  it 
rises  to  the  surface  and  sweeps  slowly  around  the  outer 
curve,  the  lightest  touch  would  throw  it  out  of  the 
whirl  into  the  placid  stream  beyond.  But  there  is  no 
one  to  give  it  this  slight  touch  at  the  right  time.  Now, 
the  effort  necessary  at  these  moments  to  escape  from 
the  centripetal  force  —  this  effort  of  which  the  log  is 
incapable,  —  is  exactly  the  effort  of  which  man  is  capable. 


152  INDIVIDUALISM 

and  a  liigh  capacity  for  which  distinguishes  him  from 
all  the  lower  animals.  We  have  seen  with  what  dreary 
monotony  man  has  swept  round  and  romid  the  vicious 
circle,  —  a  monotony  that  is  relieved  only  when,  drawn 
towards  the  centre,  he  has  been  sucked  down  among  the 
rocks  below ;  we  have  seen  that  we  are  still  sweeping 
slowly  around  the  outer  curve.  The  question  for  us  is 
whether  we  shall  make  the  effort  necessary,  by  resisting 
selfishness,  to  emerge  upon  the  placid  stream  towards 
improvement;  or,  because  our  movement  is  still  slow 
and  to  appearances  innocent,  we  fail  to  make  this  effort, 
closing  our  eyes  to  the  sucking  vortex  which  remains 
close  to  us,  and  towards  which  we  are  by  selfishness 
being  drawn.  We  are  moving  slowly  now;  we  may 
move  faster  by  and  by. 

§  7.  The  Social  Results  of  Private 
Property 

From  the  foregoing  statement  of  the  working  of  in- 
dustrialism it  seems  to  be  difficult  to  decide  that  it 
is  in  any  sense  of  the  word  less  immoral  than  war; 
indeed,  it  is  in  many  respects  far  more  immoral ;  for 
in  war  there  is  little  pretence  at  virtue,  Avhereas  com- 
merce glows  with  hypocrisy. 

Such,  indeed,  is  the  inconsistency  of  man  that  war 
is  generally  opened  with  prayer  and  the  language  of 
Israel  borrowed  by  each  warring  power  to  put  the 
Almiglity  on  liis  side.  But  few  reasoning  creatures 
are  deceived  by  this  device,  and  the  better  part  of  the 
public  mind  is  gradually  revolting  more  and  more  at 
the  obvious  cruelty  of  bloodshed.  Unfortunately  the 
cruelty  of  industrialism,  ])cing  less  obvious,  has  not  yet 
reached  the  moral  sense  of  the  community;  not  because 
it  is  in  itself  less  revolting,  but  because  the  criminality 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM        153 

of  it  has  not  been  made  clear.  Political  economists 
have  dwelt  so  fondly  on  the  laws  which  automatically 
govern  the  relation  of  supply  to  demand  that  people 
have  not  yet  become  alive  to  the  fact  that  the  operation 
of  these  automatic  laws  is  in  its  effect  identical  with 
the  predatory  law  of  nature.  In  both  the  law  of  com- 
petition is  allowed  to  operate  regardless  of  cost  in  life 
and  happiness  ;  in  both  the  majority  suffer  for  the  bene- 
fit of  a  few.  The  scheme  of  Nature,  however,  differs  from 
that  of  man  in  the  important  fact  that,  whereas  the  one 
results  in  benefit  for  the  race,  the  latter  tends  towards 
its  degeneration ;  and  whereas  the  one  conceals  its 
victims  in  a  common  grave,  the  other  rescues  them,  as 
it  were,  from  the  brink  of  the  grave  in  order  to  prolong 
their  wretched  existence,  perpetuate  the  type,  and  flood 
the  almshouses,  the  lunatic  asylum,  and  the  State 
prison.  The  contrast  between  Nature's  plan  and  ours 
has  been  abeady  sufiiciently  drawn ;  there  is,  however, 
one  point  in  connection  with  the  result  of  industrialism 
to  which  too  careful  attention  cannot  be  given,  for 
there  is,  I  think,  a  widespread  error  regarding  it. 

It  is  commonly  believed,  and  indeed  it  is  constantly 
preached,  that  if  every  man  did  his  duty  according  to 
the  gospel  of  Christ,  there  would  be  neither  pauperism 
nor  crime ;  and  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  it  is 
frequently  maintained  that  increase  of  human  happi- 
ness does  not  depend  on  reform  of  political  or  social 
institutions,  but  rather  on  the  universal  practice  of 
charity  and  sacrifice. 

Now,  I  think  there  are  bound  together  in  this  view  a 
great  truth  and  a  great  error:  doubtless  if  all  men  were 
perfect  there  would  be  no  poor;  but  in  that  case  neither 
would  there  be  a  competitive  system ;  so  that  although 
perfection  of  character  would  doubtless  residt  in  the 
disappearance^  of  pauperism,  a  necessary  phase  through 


154  INDIVIDUALISM 

which  the  process  of  perfection  would  take  place  must 
be  the  slow  but  entire  demolition  of  the  competitive 
system.  Now,  the  question  whether  perfection  of  char- 
acter can  precede  the  destruction  of  the  competitive  sys- 
tem, or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  the  destruction  of  the 
competitive  system  must  precede  perfection  of  character, 
must  be  kept  for  a  subsequent  chapter ;  suffice  it  here 
to  point  out,  that  so  long  as  the  competitive  system  exists, 
pauperism  must  exist,  and  so  long  as  pauperism  exists, 
crime  must  exist;  for  pauperism  is  the  hot-bed  of  crime. 

Quite  apart,  then,  from  all  religious  discussion  of  tliis 
question,  it  is  above  all  important  that  we  should  note 
and  remember  that  industrialism  not  only  does  result 
in  pauperism,  but  that  it  must  do  so. 

And  if  we  want  to  be  sure  whether  this  statement  be 
true  or  not,  we  must  be  careful  to  satisfy  ourselves  that 
we  know  just  what  pauperism  is.  To  the  considera- 
tion of  this  question  it  may  be  well  next  to  direct  our 
attention. 

(rt)  Poverty 

Human  life  is  supported  by  the  consumption  of  other 
lives,  —  animal  and  vegetable.  The  living  tilings  fitted 
for  our  food  are  for  ever  streaming  to  our  markets,  there 
to  be  distributed,  devoured,  and  digested.  In  this 
process  there  is  a  twofold  production  of  waste  which  re- 
sults from  those  parts  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  that 
are  either  unfit  for  food  or  have  become  so  durincr  tlie 
process  of  distribution ;  the  part  which  is  not  eaten  is 
called  garbage  ;  the  other  part  results  from  the  jirocess 
of  digestion  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  which  after  digestion  is 
excreted  ;  this  part  is  called  sewage.  The  problem  of 
how  to  dispose  of  these  two  waste  products  has  not  yet 
been  satisfactorily  solved  ;  for  although  we  are  rapidly 
adopting  sanitary  measures  for  disposing  of  them  in 


THE   INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         155 

such  a  way  as  not  to  breed  disease,  there  is  one  element 
in  the  problem  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been 
seriously  attacked ;  for  all  animal  and  vegetable  life 
draws  from  the  soil  certain  mineral  products,  such  as 
phosphorus,  potash,  and  nitrates,  which  are  not  restored 
to  it  under  our  system.  Under  natural  conditions  they 
are  restored  to  it,  owing  to  the  fact  that  lower  animals, 
not  being  congregated  by  millions  as  human  beings  are, 
deposit  their  excreta  at  large,  thereby  retiu'ning  to  the 
soil  the  mineral  products  which  animals  assimilate  only 
in  microscopic  proportions,  and  the  decay  attending 
which,  if  in  sufficiently  small  quantities,  the  soil  is 
sufficiently  antiseptic  to  take  care  of.  When,  however, 
this  waste  is  accumulated  in  such  vast  quantities  as  in 
our  larger  cities,^  it  not  only  tends  to  breed  disease, 
but,  if  not  returned  to  the  land,  represents  a  perpetual 
drain  of  its  most  valuable  ingredients.  In  New  York 
State,  for  example,  may  be  witnessed  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  of  a  soil  daily  robbed  of  its  essential  elements ; 
these  essential  elements  hurried  by  human  industry  to 
the  sea,  and  restored  in  part  to  the  land  through  the 
importation  of  guano  from  South  America,  where  the 
excreta  of  birds  are  quarried  and  transported  over 
thousands  of  miles  by  water  and  by  land  under  a  system 
which  combines  incomparable  cost  with  lamentable 
prodigality. 

This  treatment  of  the  waste  that  results  from  food 
products  seems  to  betray  a  singular  lack  of  intelligence, 
but  it  does  not  compare  in  this  respect  with  the  folly 
and  cruelty  with  which  we  treat  the  waste  of  population. 

For  just  as  the  animal  and  vegetable  life  which  is  fit 

for  human  consumption  moves  from  the  country  to  the 

town,  so  the  human  lives  that  are  fit  for  industrial  con- 

1  The  garbage  of  New  York  City  is  nearly  three  thousand  tons  a  day  ; 
the  sewage  escaping  through  the  sewers  it  is  impossible  to  measure. 


156  INDIVIDUALISM 

sumption  move  from  the  countiy  to  the  town,  under  the 
impulse  of  laws  as  certain  as  the  law  of  gravitation. 
Every  farmer  in  New  York  State  who,  toiling  with  his 
hands,  has  to  pay  high  rent  for  a  few  acres,  is  brought 
by  steam  into  competition  with  industrial  institutions 
in  the  prairies  of  the  West,  where  steam  replaces  hand 
labour  and  where  far  lower  prices  are  proportionally  paid 
for  rent  and  transportation.  Thus  New  York  land 
becomes  less  and  less  able  to  yield  profit  and  at  last  will 
not  even  yield  a  living  to  an  increasing  population  ;  the 
increase  then  must  seek  a  living  elsewhere  ;  it  hesitates 
to  travel  West  where  steam  has  replaced  human  labour ; 
and  so  the  hope  of  a  living  wage  draws  them  inevitably 
to  the  town.  Moreover,  the  town  needs  them  and  silently 
beckons  to  them ;  for  experience  shows  that  it  is  not  the 
countryman  who  swells  the  ranks  of  the  city  poor ;  it 
takes  several  generations  to  convert  a  healthy  comitry- 
man  into  a  pauper;  and  as  this  process  of  conversion 
goes  on,  the  pauper's  place  has  to  be  filled  up  from 
the  healthy  population  out  of  town.  Again,  experience 
shows  that  one-fifth  of  the  entire  population  ends  its 
existence  in  the  poorhouse  or  the  penitentiary.  So  here 
we  have  the  picture  complete :  the  flow  of  the  healthy 
country  population  to  the  urban  mill ;  and  from  the 
urban  mill  the  flow  of  a  pauper  population  to  a  pauper 
grave. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  urban  mill  devours  and  digests 
the  country  product  just  as  the  human  stomach  does ; 
and  just  as  sewage  and  garbage  are  the  waste  of  food,  so 
the  pauper  and  the  criminal  arc  the  waste  of  population. 

To  expect  the  industrial  mill  to  grind  and  not  pro- 
duce paupers  would  be  as  inconsistent  as  to  expect  a 
threshing-machine  to  thresh  and  not  produce  chaff. 
The  admitted  purpose  of  the  industrial  mill  is  by  the 
application  of  the  principle  of  competition  to  use  the 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        157 

material  that  comes  to  it,  sifting  out  tliat  which  it  cannot 
or  can  no  longer  use.  But  the  evil  of  the  system  is  that 
it  does  not  merely  use  the  material :  it  uses  the  mate- 
rial up;  in  the  human  mill  there  is  little  or  no  chaff  in 
what  comes  to  the  mill ;  the  chaff  is  created  in  the 
milling.  Competition  brings  good  material  to  the  mill ; 
and  the  mill  turns  out  bad  material;  it  is  competition 
that  makes  the  good  material  bad.  And  as  the  mill 
must  work,  it  for  ever  asks  for  more  population,  and  is 
for  ever  converting  that  population  into  waste. 

This  is  the  process  which  is  going  on  before  our  eyes ; 
it  is  the  process  with  which  we  have  become  familiar  in 
the  realm  of  nature,  and  which  under  human  conditions 
is  expressed  in  the  words,  "  every  man  for  himself  and 
the  devil  take  the  hindmost."  If  only  the  devil  did 
take  the  hindmost !  but  the  devil  does  not  take  him ; 
the  devil  leaves  him  for  us  to  wring  our  hands  over. 

It  has  been  already  intimated  that  our  treatment  of 
the  waste  of  population  is  even  more  unintelligent  than 
our  treatment  of  the  waste  of  food ;  and  indeed,  al- 
though we  allow  the  latter  to  carry  off  to  sea  the  most 
precious  ingredients  of  our  soil,  we  do  at  any  rate  get 
rid  of  its  corruption  for  the  most  part ;  but  the  former 
—  this  waste  of  population  which  consists  of  men  and 
women  like  ourselves  —  we  collect  in  vast  reservoirs 
which  we  call  institutions,  and  which,  because  they  never 
can  be  large  enough  permanently  to  hold  the  ever-in- 
creasing accumulations  of  urban  waste,  are  for  ever  over- 
flowing and  pouring  back  upon  our  already  teeming 
cities  the  poison  that  for  the  most  part  leaves  its  prison 
more  poisonous  than  before. 

(b)  Militarism 

It  is  difficult  to  say  in  what  the  industrial  type  is  an 
improvement  upon  the  military :  militarism  at  any  rate 


158  INDIVIDUALISM 

does  promote  courage  and  sincerity ;  or,  to  put  it  more 
carefully,  tliere  is  nothing  in  a  soldier's  life  essentially 
inconsistent  with  courage  and  with  truth ;  whereas  trade 
tends  to  conduct  its  wars  by  declarations  of  peace  and 
do  its  iniquities  under  the  sanction  of  law.  It  manu- 
factures paupers  with  protestations  of  hypocrisy,  and, 
while  withholding  sufficient  wages  with  one  hand,  offers 
insufficient  charity  with  the  other. 

And  all  of  us,  good  and  bad,  are  victims  of  this  sys- 
tem, —  not  only  those  who  themselves  suffer  in  hunger 
and  in  want,  but  those  who  suffer  for  the  hunger  and 
want  of  others.  We  are  as  helpless  as  they:  if  we 
strive  to  help  them,  they  vindictively  refuse  oiu-  offer,  or 
if  they  accept  it,  do  so  without  gratitude  or  thanks ;  and 
they  are  not  altogether  wrong,  for  we  are  all  partners  in 
the  system  that  drags  them  down. 

Nor  is  it  possible  to  contend  that  war  is  more  cruel 
than  industrialism :  the  bodies  of  the  dead  that  strew  a 
battlefield  are  out  of  pain ;  but  what  shall  be  said  of  the 
bodies  of  those  who  struggle  in  daily  misery  against  the 
crushing  tyranny  of  the  Market ;  or  of  those  that  are 
reduced  to  the  silence  and  discipline  of  the  almshouse ; 
or  of  those  who  with  no  hope  of  better  things  expiate 
their  offences  in  the  penitentiary? 

But  the  industrial  system  has  its  battlefields  as  well 
as  war;  witness  the  report  of  tlie  British  Governor- 
General,  "  The  bones  of  the  cotton-weavers  are  bleach- 
ing the  plains  of  India." 

Nor  can  it  be  any  longer  disputed  that  not  only  is 
industrialism  a  war  under  cover,  but  it  inevitiibly  leads 
to  war  in  the  open.  If  we  have  not  been  driven  by  it 
to  war  in  the  United  States,  it  is  because  we  have  here- 
tofore enjoyed  a  sufficient  market  for  our  manufactures 
iji  the  Western  States;  in  England,  however,  where  the 
industrial  system  lias  reached  its  most  perfect  develop- 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM        159 

ment,  production  outstrips  purchasing  power  so  rapidly 
that  it  is  only  by  conquest  that  she  can  keep  her  fac- 
tories open,  and  we  therefore  find  Great  Britain  driven 
by  an  irresistible  force  to  the  conquest  and  colonisation 
of  all  those  parts  of  the  world  where  she  can  force  her 
goods  on  the  people  or  edge  the  people  out.  But 
although  we  have  not  as  yet  been  driven  by  over- 
production to  war,  the  day  has  at  last  come  when  the 
same  conditions  which  have  diiven  England  to  aggres- 
sion are  nraino-  us  also.  Mr.  John  R.  Proctor  writes  : 
"  Mulhall  estimates  that  the  United  States  possess  al- 
most as  much  energy  in  foot  tons  as  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Germany  combined.  Already  our  capacity 
for  production^  hath  in  agricultural  and  manufactured 
products,  far  exceeds  our  capacity  for  consumption^  so  that 
we  must  seek  foreign  markets  for  the  disposition  of  our 
increasing  supplies.'"'^  And  in  a  subsequent  article  he 
argues  in  favoui-  of  retaining  the  Philippines  and  unit- 
ing with  England  to  resist  Russia  in  order  to  protect 
our  trade.  Indeed,  it  is  this  question  of  trade  that  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  present  demand  for  imperialism,  the 
money-maker  dangling  the  rag  of  glory  to  set  the  soldier 
in  movement  and  inflaming  the  hearts  of  the  people 
with  an  interested  cry  of  patriotism.  This  must  not  be 
understood  as  a  denunciation  of  expansion,  of  the  reten- 
tion of  the  Philippines,  or  of  a  defensive  and  if  need  be 
offensive  alliance  with  England.  So  long  as  we  are 
part  of  the  competitive  system,  we  may  have  to  fight  or 
go  under.  What  is  criticised  is  not  the  policy  of  ex- 
pansion, but  the  competitive  system,  which  makes  this 
expansion  necessary. 

Nor  is  it  intended  as  a  reproach ;  in  many  respects,  as 

1  "  Forum,"  September,  1897,  — Hawaii  and  the  Changing  Front  of  the 
World.  See  also  another  article  in  the  "Forum"  for  September,  1898, 
entitled,   "Isolation  or  Imperialism." 


160  INDIVIDUALISM 

has  been  already  intimated,  Anglo-Saxon  aggression 
brings  blessings  of  prosperity  to  a  heretofore  oppressed 
people.  Nor,  again,  is  the  disparagement  of  the  industrial 
system  intended  as  a  disparagement  of  those  engaged  in 
it;  on  the  contrary,  the  most  careful  effort  has  been 
made  to  point  out  that  all  of  us,  good  and  bad,  are  vic- 
tims of  the  system.  We  can  no  more  resist  it  than  we 
can  resist  the  force  of  gravitation ;  for  like  gravitation 
it  does  not  suggest  resistance,  but  docility.  All  gravita- 
tion asks  is  that  we  should  refrain  from  ignoring  it; 
but,  alas !  while  gravitation  hurts  no  one  save  those  who 
refuse  to  comply  with  her  laws,  industrialism  holds  a 
few  harmless  only  on  the  condition  of  keeping  the 
majority  in  a  torment  of  anxiety  and  consigning  a  fifth 
to  a  disgraceful  death. 

(c)  Corruption 

In  no  respect  does  the  competitive  system  work  more 
detriment  to  the  community  than  in  its  influence  on 
politics ;  for  a  very  little  consideration  will  suffice  to 
show  that  under  existing  conditions  political  corruption 
must  result  from  it. 

It  has  been  sufficiently  demonstrated  that  what  with 
the  competition  between  employera  on  the  one  hand,  and 
what  with  the  high  rate  of  wages  maintained  by  trade 
unions  on  the  other,  profits  derivable  from  normal  in- 
dustries are  reduced  to  such  a  degree  as  to  make  these 
industries  unattractive.  Even  when  they  are  run  on  a 
sufficiently  large  scale  to  make  small  profits  result  in  a 
large  income  for  the  employer,  they  are  exposed  to  un- 
avoidable risks ;  witness  the  effect  of  the  competition  of 
Soutliern  mills  upon  the  New  England  cotton  industr3% 
owing  to  the  more  profitable  conditions  under  whicli  the 
former  can  manufacture,  —  conditions  which  have  only 
developed  within  the  last  few  years. 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM         161 

For  this  reason  astute  men  avoid  ordinary  channels  of 
industry  where  competition  is  allowed  free  scope.  They 
seek  the  larger  profits  which  can  be  secured  only  from 
some  form  of  monopoly ;  they  resort  to  different  expe- 
dients to  this  end.  Patents  constitute  a  monopoly  in 
which  some  fortunes  are  made ;  manufacturers  create 
what  are  called  proprietary  articles  by  extensive  adver- 
tisements, whereby  they  induce  the  public  to  believe 
that  the  article  manufactured  by  them  under  a  name 
made  familiar  b}^  being  posted  on  all  our  wall  spaces 
and  our  most  picturesque  views  is  superior  to  all  other 
articles  of  the  same  character.  The  latest  device  to 
which  money-makers  have  resorted  in  order  to  escape 
from  competition  is  the  combination  of  all  factories 
engaged  in  the  same  industry  in  so-called  trusts,  thereby 
creating  a  capital  so  large  that  they  can  crush  out  any 
person  venturing  to  enter  into  the  trade  and  can  thus 
remain  in  a  condition  to  maintain  prices.  These  trusts 
and  the  Birmingham  alliance  already  explained  are 
each  in  their  respective  lines  a  demonstration  of  the 
folly  of  the  so-called  free-contract  theory ;  for  they 
show  how  the  necessary  tendency  of  freedom  of  con- 
tract is  to  lead  to  combination  for  the  purpose  of 
making  this  very  freedom  impossible. 

But  the  principal  agency  through  which  men  contrive 
to  escape  the  pressure  of  competition  is  the  agency  of 
government.  This  agency  is  appealed  to  by  manufac- 
turers for  protection  in  order  to  cut  down  competition 
from  abroad  ;  for  bounties  in  order  to  "  foster  infant  in- 
dustries "  at  home  and  for  government  concessions  of 
all  sorts,  —  concessions  for  railroads,  gas  companies, 
water  companies,  tramways,  and  the  like. 

Not  that  protection  and  bounties  are  in  themselves 
bad;  there  has  been  considerable  reaction  of  late 
amongst  our  authorities  on  political  economy  against 

11 


162  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  ultra  free-trade  doctrine  of  Cobden  and  of  Bright. 
It  seems  to  be  admitted  to-day  that  if  our  government 
were  in  the  hands  of  an  all-wise  and  all-powerful  Deity, 
interested  only  in  the  public  weal,  such  a  Deity  would 
find  it  wise  to  fight  the  tariff  and  bounty  legislations 
of  other  countries  by  tariff  and  bounty  legislations  of 
our  own.  But  whatever  differences  of  opinion  may 
exist  as  to  the  degree  to  which  the  protection  and 
bounty  system  may  be  economically  wise,  there  is  no 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  fact  that  they  are  both 
deplorable  in  their  effects,  not  only  upon  the  govern- 
ment that  grants  them,  but  upon  those  who  seek  their 
aid.  In  other  words,  the  measures  through  which 
bounty  and  protection  are  obtained,  and  through  which 
they  are  granted,  necessarily  tend  to  become  measures 
of  corruption. 

The  same  is  true  of  all  franchises  and  concessions 
granted  by  the  government  to  private  enterprise.  And 
the  still  more  deplorable  fact  connected  with  this  al- 
liance between  business  and  politics  is  that  it  not  only 
corrupts  legislators,  manufacturers,  and  all  persons  en- 
gagecl  in  securing  franchises,  but  it  also  spreads  cor- 
ruption throughout  the  people.  Never  was  a  more 
profound  mistake  uttered  than  in  the  woixls  that  the 
people  is  incorruptible.  It  was  when  the  Roman  people 
became  corrupt  that  the  Roman  Empire  fell.  The 
evils  of  political  corruption  from  which  we  suffer  in 
the  United  States  to-day  would  not  last  a  week  if  they 
did  not  include  the  people  or  what  is  equivalent  in 
practice,  that  part  of  the  people  that  controls  the  po- 
litical machine.  The  story  of  how  this  liappens  lias 
lately  been  picturesquely  told  by  Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman 
in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  I  shall  therefore  refer  to 
it  here  only  with  the  utmost  brevity. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  politics 


THE   INSTRUMENT  OF   INDIVIDUALISM         163 

of  New  York  State  are  practically  run  by  the  New  York 
Central  Railroad,  with  the  assistance  of  all  the  other 
corporations  which  have  interest  in  controlling  the 
sources  of  their  supplies  and  the  machinery  of  their 
taxation.  Chicago  has  long  been  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  own  its  tramways ;  a  similar  ring,  which  owns  the 
tramways  and  the  waterworks  of  Philadelphia,  has  long 
controlled  its  city  politics,  and  Greater  New  York  has 
lately  passed  under  a  similar  control  through  the  alli- 
ance of  the  Metropolitan  Traction  Company  with  Tam- 
many Hall. 

With  these  facts  we  have  long  been  familiar,  but 
there  is  an  element  connected  with  these  facts  and 
underlying  them  of  which  we  are  not  all  of  us  aware  ; 
and  this  fact  is  that  the  reason  why  reform  movements 
so  often  fail,  and  even  when  they  succeed  do  not  re- 
sult in  permanent  improvement,  is  that  they  always 
run  up  at  last  against  some  private  interest.  In  the 
campaign  of  1897  in  New  York  the  Citizens'  Union 
which  represented  the  reform  element  adopted  a  plat- 
form which  included  the  ownership  by  the  city  of  its 
own  franchises.  While  this  campaign  was  in  progress 
it  was  discovered  that  opportunity  had  arisen  which 
permitted  the  city  to  repurchase  one  of  the  franchises 
which  had  been  granted  many  years  ago  for  an  in- 
sufficient consideration.  Proceeding's  in  court  were 
instituted  to  this  end ;  and  the  Citizens'  Union  was 
amazed  there  to  find  the  most  distinguished  reformers 
in  New  York  City  appear  as  counsel  for  the  defendant 
company,  thereby  opposing  the  movement  fathered  by 
the  very  reform  organisation  of  which  these  distin- 
guished comisel  were  supposed  to  be  the  principal 
props.  When  asked  how  they  reconciled  their  attitude 
as  counsel,  they  answered  that  litigation  was  business, 
not  politics. 


164  INDIVIDUALISM 

In  another  case,  a  young  man,  fired  with  indignation 
at  the  villainy  which  was  daily  practised  in  the  field 
of  municipal  politics,  secured  large  subscriptions  from 
his  personal  friends  with  a  view  to  conducting  a  vigor- 
ous campaign  against  it.  After  the  fund  was  raised, 
he  discovered  that  the  ring  he  had  to  fight  drew  all 
its  resources  from  a  gas  company ;  he  found  a  flaw  in 
the  franchise  of  the  gas  company,  and  instituted  an 
attack  upon  it.  The  shares  of  the  gas  company  went 
down  three  points.  This  fall  of  three  points  deluged 
him  Avith  letters  from  those  who  had  subscribed  to  his 
political  fund,  protesting  that  while  they  were  with  him 
in  his  fight  against  bad  politics,  he  must  not  ruin  them 
by  attacking  the  gas  company  in  which  they  had  shares. 
"  Some  distinction,"  said  they,  "  must  be  made  between 
business  and  politics." 

Unfortunately  there  is  no  difference  between  them. 
It  is  business  interests  which  make  bad  politics;  and 
so  long  as  under  the  competitive  system  business  con- 
tinues to  make  bad  politics,  so  long  our  politics  will 
be  bad,  and  nothing  can  permanently  make  them  other- 
wise. This  fact  received  an  interesting  illustration  in 
the  fate  of  the  City  Club.  Organised  in  New  York 
in  1892,  it  was  composed  for  the  most  part  of  the 
richest  and  most  distinguished  men  in  the  city.  Its 
purpose  was  to  secure  good  municipal  government. 
It  was  started  by  a  group  of  men  comparatively  young, 
as  to  whose  sincerity  of  ])urpose  no  one  has  ever  enter- 
tained a  doubt.  This  little  group,  with  pathetic  uncon- 
sciousness of  the  conditions  which  were  destined  to 
make  all  tlieir  efforts  fruitless,  formulated  plan  after 
plan  for  beginning  the  attack  on  the  enemy,  F'or  some 
inscrutable  reason  none  of  these  plans  was  ever  ap- 
proved by  the  Board  of  Trustees ;  none  of  them  ever 
came  before  the  Chib ;  and  when  at  last  a  Republican 


THE   INSTRUMENT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM        165 

legislature  sent  down  the  Lexow  Committee  to  investi- 
gate the  city  departments,  the  City  Club,  though  pos- 
sessed of  convincing  testimony  of  the  corruption  of 
the  police  department,  collected  by  some  of  its  members 
for  its  use,  refused  to  bring  this  evidence  before  the 
Committee  of  Investigation.  Fortunately,  outside  the 
Club,  Dr.  Parkhurst  had  used  his  pulpit  as  a  politi- 
cal rostrum  from  which  to  hurl  attack  after  attack 
against  Tammany  Hall ;  meeting  after  meeting  was 
organised  in  order  to  extend  the  scope  of  his  work 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  congregation ;  and  when  the 
time  came  for  action,  —  that  is  to  say,  when  the  Lexow 
Committee  of  Investigation  appeared  in  New  York,  — 
the  work  which  the  City  Club  was  constituted  to  do, 
and  was  specially  prepared  to  do,  was  abandoned  by  the 
Club,  and  taken  up  by  Dr.  Parkhurst,  who,  single- 
handed,  accomplished  what  the  City  Club  had  not 
dared  to  undertake. 

Unfortunately  the  kind  of  popular  enthusiasm  which 
can  be  roused  by  such  preaching  as  that  of  Dr.  Park- 
hurst turns  out  not  to  be  one  upon  which  a  politi- 
cal organisation  can  easily  be  built  or  a  political  pro- 
gramme systematically  worked  out;  for  the  moment 
that  anything  like  a  permanent  organisation  is  at- 
tempted, the  distinguished  men  who  naturally  present 
themselves  to  the  minds  of  the  people  as  best  fitted  to 
lead  the  movement,  and  who  are  willing  enough  to 
undertake  the  leadership,  turn  out  to  be  the  very  men 
who  are  counted  upon  for  protection  by  those  most  respon- 
sible for  the  evil.  Let  every  man  who  doubts  this  take 
pencil  in  hand  and  undertake  to  draw  up  a  list  of  the 
names  of  men  who  in  his  opinion  are  best  calculated  to 
create  confidence  in  the  minds  of  the  community  to 
which  he  belongs,  and  therefore  best  fitted  to  be  put 
upon  a  reform  committee ;  if  he  is  familiar  with  the 


166  INDIVIDUALISM 

business  conditions  of  his  city  he  will  know  as  soon  as 
his  list  is  made  up  that  nine  men  out  of  every  ten  on 
that  list  are  committed  by  some  connection  or  some 
business  interest,  whether  as  counsel  or  shareholder,  to 
an  extent  which  makes  sincere  co-operation  in  the  re- 
form movement  diiificult  if  not  impossible. 

The  reformer  is  thus  left  between  two  alternatives  ; 
if  he  makes  up  his  committee  of  men  sufficiently  well 
known  to  attract  the  confidence  of  the  community,  they 
will  be  men  upon  whose  sincerity  he  cannot  count ;  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  endeavours  to  secure  men  upon 
whose  sincerity  he  can  count,  it  will  be  because  they  are 
not  rich  enough  or  distinguished  enough  to  have  any 
weight  with  the  community.  It  is  between  these  two 
alternatives  that  the  reformer  who  dreams  of  perma- 
nent^ reform  organisation  under  existing  industrial  con- 
ditions stands  paralysed. 

But  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  corruption 
caused  by  business  interests  is  confined  to  the  wealthy 
and  the  distinguished :  it  extends  throughout  the  entire 
community,  from  the  retail  trader  to  the  owner  of  a 

1  Importance  is  attached  to  the  word  "  [)crnianent."  The  splendid 
work  done  by  many  municipalities  in  Enj^Iand  and  Europe  may  be  cited  to 
show  that  the  argument  in  these  pages  is  not  well  founded.  An  attempt 
to  enter  into  the  reasons  why  the  better  element  obtains  control  of  govern- 
ment at  sundry  times  and  places  would  involve  considerable  digression 
from  the  main  issue.  It  has  been  already  explained  that  when  engaged 
in  showing  the  evil  action  of  our  economico-social  system,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary at  every  step  to  show  that,  notwithstanding  this  evil  action,  there  are 
good  impulses  also  at  work.  In  the  United  States  the  evil  prevails  ;  this 
argument  is  an  effort  to  show  why  it  prevails.  If  we  had  in  the  United 
States  an  aristocracy,  pledged  by  the  principle  noblesse  oblige,  to  counter- 
act this  evil,  we  might  have  less  municipal  corruption  ;  but  we  should 
then  be  exposed  to  the  aristocratic  evil ;  and  government  run  hypocritically 
in  the  interests  of  an  aristocracy  of  culture  may  be  as  bad  as  government 
run  openly  in  the  interests  of  Tammany  Hall.  The  attempt  made  in 
these  pages  is  to  show  that  there  is  a  tendency  towards  corruption  inher- 
ent in  the  competitive  system.  It  does  not  attempt  to  show  that  it  can 
never  be  counteracted. 


THE  INSTRUMENT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM         167 

peanut  stand ;  for  every  law  which  is  enacted,  whether 
good  or  bad,  with  a  view  of  maintaining  order,  health,  and 
safety  in  the  community,  can  be  turned  by  an  unscrupu- 
lous political  organisation  into  an  instrument  for  exact- 
ing blackmail  or  compelling  political  support ;  and  the 
opportunities  for  accomplishing  this  are  so  numerous 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  exhaust  them.  A  few 
illustrations  must  suffice  to  show  the  extent  to  which 
they  reach. 

New  York  City  has  been  defectively  constructed  in 
the  absence  of  back  alleys,  so  that  there  is  no  way  of 
delivering  goods  from  the  wagon  to  the  store  except 
over  the  sidewalk ;  it  is  difficult,  therefore,  to  deliver 
goods  of  any  size  without  occasionally  obstructing 
the  sidewalk.  Now,  the  city  ordinances  prohibit  this. 
There  are  only  two  ways,  therefore,  in  which  a  store- 
keeper can,  notwithstanding  this  ordinance,  conduct  his 
business :  one  is  by  corruption,  and  the  other  is  by  join- 
ing the  political  organisation  which  is  in  control  of  the 
city.  One  of  the  minor  political  organisations  which 
has  figured  constantly  during  the  last  few  years  in  New 
York  was  organised  by  the  abuse  of  this  city  ordinance ; 
the  leader  of  the  organisation  was  appointed  corpora- 
tion attorney,  the  corporation  attorney  being  the  officer 
whose  specific  duty  it  was  to  see  to  the  execution  of 
this  ordinance.  The  system  he  adopted  was  as  follows  : 
The  citizen  who  obstructed  the  sidewalk  was  sued ; 
wlien  he  came  to  court  to  answer  the  summons  the 
case  was  adjourned.  Every  time  he  came  to  court  the 
case  was  adjourned ;  the  first  time  he  failed  to  appear, 
he  was  heavily  fined.  He  was  then  summoned  once 
more  for  a  new  offence ;  again  the  case  was  adjourned 
every  time  he  appeared,  and  resulted  in  a  fine  when  he 
failed  to  do  so.  This  process  was  continued  until  the 
storekeeper  either  subscribed  to  the  corruption  fund  or 


168  INDIVIDUALISM 

joined  the  "organisation."  In  this  manner  nearly  all 
city  ordinances  can  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
political  support ;  the  ordinance,  for  example,  prohibit- 
ing push-carts  from  remaining  standing  in  the  street,  is 
regularly  employed  by  district  leaders  to  secure  the 
political  support  of  all  the  men  who  use  push-carts ;  the 
same  system  is  adopted  as  has  been  described ;  the  push- 
cart man  is  arrested  and  brought  to  court,  where  he  finds 
himself  between  the  prosecuting  officer  and  the  district 
leader.  If  he  joins  the  organisation,  the  case  is  dis- 
missed ;  if  he  does  not,  he  is  fined,  whether  guilty  or 
not  guilty,  the  whole  court  being  sometimes  party  to 
the  conspiracy. 

The  building  laws  formed  for  the  purpose  of  secur- 
ing the  safety  and  sanitation  of  our  buildings  are  con- 
tinually used  in  the  same  way.  Under  this  law  every 
builder  has  to  submit  plans  of  buildings  and  alterations 
of  buildings  to  the  building  department ;  if  he  belongs 
to  the  organisation,  his  plans  are  passed  promptly  ;  if  he 
does  not  belong  to  the  organisation,  his  plans  are  de- 
layed in  a  manner  to  make  the  conduct  of  business 
difficult  if  not  impossible.  Owners  of  buildings  are 
subjected  to  the  same  kind  of  persecution ;  health  in- 
spectors are  instructed  to  compel  alterations  whether 
they  are  exacted  by  the  law  or  not;  with  the  conse- 
quence that  the  property-owner  generally  finds  it 
cheaper  to  contribute  to  the  corruption  fund  or  join  the 
organisation  than  to  enter  into  litigation  with  the 
health  department  on  the  question  raised.  It  should  be 
pointed  out  that  it  is  not  the  men  who  violate  the  law 
alone  who  are  subjected  to  this  political  pressure;  on 
the  contrary,  builders  and  property-owners  who  comply 
with  the  law  are  the  very  ones  most  marked  for  per- 
secution. It  does  not  cost  a  political  organisation  wliicli 
is  in  control  of  the  city  anything  to  litigate ;  litigation 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM        169 

is  paid  for  by  the  city ;  but  it  costs  a  citizen  more  than 
he  can  spare,  in  time  as  well  as  money,  to  fight  an 
organisation  which  is  better  equipped  at  every  point  for 
such  a  fight  than  he. 

The  control  of  the  liquor  department  has,  however, 
probably  been  the  most  potent  of  all  the  devices  by 
which  political  organisations  have  controlled  votes.  The 
liquor  saloon  has  been  called  the  poor  man's  club,  and  is 
such  in  effect.  The  influence  of  the  liquor  saloon,  there- 
fore, in  politics  is  incalculable.  Sunday  is  the  most 
profitable  day  in  the  week  for  the  transaction  of  liquor 
business,  and  upon  the  permission  clandestinely  to  keep 
open  on  Sunday  depends  the  prosperity  of  every  liquor- 
dealer.  Not  only  does  this  permission  secure  to  the 
organisation  the  support  of  the  liquor-dealer,  but  his 
saloon  becomes  a  centre  of  political  propaganda.  It  is 
without  doubt  the  old  affiliation  between  Tammany 
Hall  and  the  liquor-dealers  which  constitutes  its  par- 
ticular political  strength. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  worst  features  of  this  system  is 
that  it  involves  the  corruption  of  the  police,  —  that  is  to 
say,  of  the  very  men  upon  whom  the  order  of  the  com- 
munity practically  depends  ;  and  the  corruption  of  the 
police  is  not  confined  to  misdemeanours,  but  sometimes 
extends  to  crime.  It  is  well  known  that  every  house  of 
prostitution  in  New  York  remains  open  only  under  the 
protection  of  the  police  ;  and  on  numerous  occasions 
it  has  become  clear  that  the  police  have  an  understand- 
ing with  receivers  of  stolen  goods.  Whether,  under 
these  circumstances,  person  or  property  can  long  be 
deemed  safe  is  a  question  which  every  citizen  has  to 
think  out  seriously  for  himself. 


170  INDIVIDUALISM 

§  8.  Private  Property  and  the  Church 

There  occasionally  arises  in  England  an  opposition  to 
the  relation  which  exists  there  between  the  government 
and  the  established  Church.  Doubtless  the  evils  which 
attend  a  state-endowed  church  are  great ;  but  it  is  sub- 
mitted that  those  which  attend  a  chiu-ch  subjected  to 
the  pressure  of  the  competitive  system  are  just  as  great, 
if  not  greater.  And  here  we  have  an  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  the  competitive  system  keeps  us  for  ever 
between  two  equally  unfortunate  alternatives ;  it  is  the 
source  of  practically  all  our  unsolved  and  unsolvable 
political  problems.  Indeed,  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
time  seems  to  have  come  for  us  to  decide  whether  or 
not  it  is  worth  while  attempting  to  solve  problems  that 
are  insoluble,  if  it  is  true  that  the  competitive  system 
keeps  them  so ;  or  whether  the  only  alternative  left  to 
us  is  not  at  once  to  study  how,  if  at  all,  this  root  of  all 
our  political  evils  can  be  attacked. 

We  have  seen  the  system  of  unendowed  churches  at 
work  in  the  United  States  now  sufficiently  long  to 
permit  of  our  coming  to  some  conclusions  about  it ;  let 
us  consider  for  a  moment  what  these  conclusions  are. 

A  church  cannot  imder  existing  conditions  live 
without  money  ;  if  unendowed,  the  main  source  upon 
which  it  has  to  depend  for  this  money  is  its  parish- 
ioners ;  but  every  church  has  much  to  gain  or  lose  from 
its  relations  witli  the  efovernment.  It  can  secure  grants 
of  land  from  the  government,  as  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  did  the  land  upon  which  was  built  its  cathedral 
in  New  York  and  the  adjacent  asylums ;  it  can  secure 
freedom  from  taxation  ;  it  can  secure  per  capita  contri- 
butions for  its  institutions,  and  chapels  in  the  institu- 
tions of  the  State. 

Every  church,  therefore,  has,  in  order  to  succeed,  to 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM         171 

propitiate  three  personalities,  —  that  of  the  congregation, 
that  of  the  municipality,  and  that  of  the  State.  It  can 
live  only  on  the  condition  of  propitiating  the  first  of 
them,  and  it  can  hardly  prosper  without  winning  over 

all  three. 

The  Church,  therefore,  instead  of  directing,  is  itself 
directed ;  instead  of  denouncing  evil,  it  has  to  propitiate 
it,  and,  although  its  mission  is  to  preach  virtue,  it  is 
sometimes  sorely  tempted  to  practise  iniquity. 

An  illustration  will  serve  to  show  the  working  of 
this  system.  The  government  from  wliich  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  secured  the  land  above  mentioned  was 
the  most  avowedly  corrupt  government  the  country  had 
ever  seen:  it  was  the  government  of  which  its  chief, 
Tweed,  said,  "  We  have  our  hands  deep  in  the  pockets 
of  the  people,  and  we  mean  to  take  them  out  full ;  "  and 
when  asked  what  the  people  would  say  to  this,  an- 
swered, "  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  "  Was 
the  Church  for  this  reason  to  refuse  to  accept  a  gift  of 
land  from  Mr.  Tweed?  Many  would  answer:  Clearly 
not.  It  was  the  robber  barons  who  built  most  of  the 
cathedrals  of  Europe.  It  is  a  part  of  the  scheme  of 
Nature  —  and  the  most  beneficent  part  of  it  —  that  out 
of  evil  often  comes  good.  Pious  people  profit  by 
this  principle  when  they  can ;  build  temples  out  of 
the  spoils  of  war,  and  cathedrals  out  of  the  plunder  of 
Tammany  Hall.  Unfortunately,  however,  if  good  some- 
times springs  from  evil,  evil  has  a  way  of  returning  the 
compliment;  for  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church  have 
doubtless  experienced  some  embarrassment  when  they 
found  themselves  under  the  duty  to  preach  the  gospel 
to  a  congregation  the  most  prominent  members  of 
which  were  the  very  men  who,  after  having  endowed 
the  Church,  were  engaged  in  reimbursing  their  endow- 
ments from  the  pockets  of  the  people. 


172  INDIVIDUALISM 

And  it  is  not  easy  to  say  what  course  the  Church 
could  in  such  a  case  successfully  adopt.  She  has  sel- 
dom since  the  fifteenth  century  interfered  in  politics 
without  discomfiture.  Even  in  the  most  bigoted  of  all 
the  nations  of  the  world,  when  the  Pope  put  an  inter- 
dict on  Segovia,  Avila,  and  the  other  cities  which  were 
defending  their  privileges  against  Charles  V.,  the  inter- 
dict was  contemptuously  disregarded,  and  Charles  V. 
himself  entreated  the  Pope  to  remove  it;  and  only  a 
few  years  ago  in  Ireland,  the  last  refuge  of  Romanism 
amongst  English-speaking  countries,  the  voice  of  the 
Pope  exhorting  submission  was  disregarded  with  scorn. 
If  tlie  Church,  even  when  endowed  and  independent, 
has  to  follow  rather  than  lead  the  political  intrigues 
of  her  devotees,  what  shall  be  said  of  the  Church  which 
is  neither  endowed  nor  independent  ? 

Nor  are  these  insurmountable  difficulties  peculiar  to 
the  Roman  Church:  they  present  themselves  not  only  to 
all  the  churches,  but  to  all  our  charitable  societies,  and 
have  dictated  the  clause  in  their  statutes  that  forbids 
their  interfering  in  matters  political.  This  clause  of  tol- 
erance, while  necessary  to  their  existence,  represents  the 
attitude  of  the  best  citizen  towards  his  government ;  it  is 
an  attitude  of  tolerance ;  and  the  tolerance  is  unfortu- 
nately a  tolerance  of  evil :  not  a  tolerance  of  good.  It  is 
the  kind  of  tolerance  which  makes  the  President  of  the 
Society  for  the  Protection  of  Children  openly  vote  for 
Tammany  Hall  because  it  subscribes  $30,000  a  year  to 
his  charity ;  it  is  the  kind  of  tolerance  that  regards  it  as 
wiser  to  co-operate  with  bad  government  tlian  resist  it ; 
it  is  a  kind  of  tolerance,  in  a  word,  wliich  is  responsible 
for  the  misgovernment  under  which  we  groan. 


THE  INSTRUMENT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM       173 

§  9.   Conclusion 

Whether,  therefore,  we  look  at  the  effect  of  industrial- 
ism upon  our  social  conditions,  upon  our  foreign  rela- 
tions, or  upon  our  internal  administration,  we  find  it 
everywhere  necessarily  resulting  in  evil.  Its  natural 
and  necessary  fruits  are  pauperism,  misgovernment,  and 
war. 

Such  is  the  machinery  which  man  has  invented  for 
the  administration  of  justice  in  the  world;  for  securing, 
as  Herbert  Spencer  puts  it,  that  the  "superior  shall 
have  the  good  of  his  superiority  and  the  inferior  the 
evil  of  his  inferiority,"  ^  regardless  of  the  fact  that  this 
is  the  very  scheme  through  which  Nature  has  brought 
the  injustice  into  the  world  which  man  has  undertaken, 
in  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  to  resist  and  overcome. 

Any  scheme  which  secures  "  to  the  superior  the  good 
of  his  superiority,  and  to  the  inferior  the  evil  of  his  in- 
feriority," is  built  upon  selfishness  ;  and  this  book  has 
been  written  in  vain  if  it  has  not  demonstrated  that  sel- 
fishness can  bring  happiness  neither  to  those  who  are 
themselves  selfish  nor  to  those  who  are  the  victims 
of  selfishness,  but  that  selfishness  must  bring  misery 
on  man  and  lead  to  his  defeneration. 

The  conclusion  which  it  has  been  sought  to  draw 
from  this  aspect  of  human  history  and  particularly  from 
that  part  of  it  which  pertains  to  industry  and  commerce, 
is  not  only  that  our  existing  institutions  do  work  injus- 
tice, but  that  they  must  do  so ;  and  that  whether  we  be 
angels  of  light  or  instruments  of  the  devil,  we  are  all 
alike  consciously  or  unconsciously  partners  in  the 
human  misery  which  inevitably  results  from  them. 

Commercialism  is  a  Moloch  which  has  almost  with- 
out resistance  obtained  ascendancy  over  us.     To  this  un- 

1  Principles  of  Sociology,  p.  567. 


174  INDIVIDUALISM 

clean  god,  with  equal  indifference,  we  hourly  sacrifice 
guilty  men  and  innocent  children;  and  of  the  cruelty 
this  cult  involves  we  are  essential  factors ;  for  it  is  a 
part  of  the  competitive  scheme  that  all  of  us  —  even 
those  who  have  the  tenderest  hearts  —  should,  inno- 
cently and  unconsciously,  in  silent  submission  to  its 
laws,  be  strangling  one  another. 


THE   RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  175 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   RESULT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM.  — THE 
SO-CALLED    SOCIAL    MIND 

In  the  first  volume  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  con- 
trast the  selection  which  takes  place  in  nature  with  the 
selection  that  takes  place  under  the  artificial  conditions 
created  by  man.  Herbert  Spencer  and  his  school 
assume  that  the  selection  that  takes  place  in  nature  is 
still  taking  place,  and  must  continue  to  take  place  in 
the  evolution  of  man.  The  result  of  our  inquiry  has 
been  to  show  that  not  only  is  the  process  of  human  de- 
velopment very  different  from  the  process  that  pre- 
ceded man,  but  that  it  is  in  many  respects  diametrically 
opposed  to  it. 

In  the  course  of  the  inquiry  it  became  necessary  to 
dwell  at  some  length  upon  the  cruelty  of  Nature's  plan, 
under  which  millions  perished  in  order  that  the  few 
most  favoured  by  the  environment  survive ;  and  to  point 
out  that  the  more  or  less  unconscious  object  of  human 
institutions  is  to  put  an  end,  in  so  far  as  we  can,  to  the 
cruelty  of  Nature.  And  from  this  point  of  view  it  was 
concluded  that  justice,  regarded  objectively,  consisted 
in  the  effort  of  humanity  to  repair  the  inequality  of 
Nature,  and  particularly  in  the  effort  of  man  to  create 
conditions  which  will  make  the  community  prosper  for 
the  benefit  of  the  individual  rather  than  at  his  expense. 
In  this  connection  it  was  shown  that  the  artificial  plan 
created  by  man  for  the  benefit  of  the  individual  is  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  the  natural  plan  which,  on  the 


176  INDIVIDUALISM 

contrary,  sacrificed  the  individual  to  the  community,  in 
such  communities  as  those  of  ants  and  bees. 

After  having  endeavoured  to  lay  down  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible in  what  respects  man  was  at  liberty  to  improve  his 
condition  in  his  conflict  with  Nature,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  what  extent  man  was  powerless  to  improve  his 
condition  in  his  conflict  with  Nature,  we  next  directed 
our  attention  to  a  short  study  of  the  history  of  human 
effort;  with  the  view  of  determining,  if  possible,  how 
far  the  efforts  of  man  in  his  conflict  with  Nature  had 
affected  the  human  machine ;  with  the  view  of  coming 
to  some  conclusion  as  to  which  of  his  efforts  had  been 
well  directed,  and  which,  on  the  contrary,  had  tended 
towards  evil. 

Throughout  the  history  of  man  we  are  struck  by  the 
fact  that  he  has  been,  at  different  periods,  actuated  by 
different  motives.  Most  of  the  time  the  predominating 
motive  has  been  the  natural  motive  of  selfishness;  but 
occasionally  the  dominating  motive  has  been  a  non- 
natural  motive,  which,  for  the  lack  of  a  better  name,  we 
must  call  "  religion ; "  and  although  we  find  that  the 
institutions  which  have  been  brought  into  existence  by 
the  religious  spirit  have  been  for  the  most  part  captured 
by  craft  in  the  interests  of  selfishness,  we  have  neverthe- 
less recognised  that  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  there 
has  remained  some  sj^jark  of  the  non-natural  or  religious 
motive,  ready  upon  any  favourable  change  of  conditions 
to  burst  into  a  flame. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  explain  this  non- 
natural  motive  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  been  treated 
sim})ly  as  one  of  the  facts  which  no  political  student  can 
affoi-d  to  disregard  in  liis  study  of  social  forces.  Nor 
have  we  been  seduced  by  religious  bias  into  believing 
that  this  non-natural  religious  force  has  alwaj's  acted  in 
a  direction  favourable  to  social  progress;   on  the  con- 


THE   RESULT   OF   INDIVIDUALISM  177 

trary,  we  have  had  to  admit  that  it  often  added  another 
motive  to  the  natural  selfish  motive  for  war,  and  that  in 
many  times  and  in  many  places  it  served  to  prevent  the 
development  of  the  family  into  the  tribe,  and  the  tribe 
into  the  State.  Nevertheless,  we  had  to  recognise  that 
it  was  the  force  best  capable  of  concentrating  human 
effort  so  as  to  rescue  it  from  the  distracting  consequences 
of  selfishness ;  and  that  when  so  acting  it  was  a  power 
of  irresistible  strength.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
had  also  to  admit  that  so  far  the  fate  of  every  religion 
has  been  at  last  to  become  the  instrument  of  the  very 
selfishness  it  started  to  destroy. 

Having,  then,  on  the  one  side  endeavoured  to  make 
clear  what  was  the  natural  environment,  the  favourable 
elements  of  which  man  has  undertaken  to  use  in  order  to 
overcome  those  elements  in  it  which  are  not  favourable 
to  him,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  endeavoured  to  show 
some  of  the  actual  phases  through  which  man  has  passed 
in  the  struggle,  it  now  becomes  our  business  to  en- 
deavour to  come  to  some  conclusion  as  to  what  is  the 
constitution  of  man  himself,  and  how  far  this  constitu- 
tion is  fitted  to  carry  on  the  struggle  in  the  future ;  all 
these  inquiries  being  preliminary  to  the  last  and  great- 
est inquiry  of  all,  —  namely,  what  are  the  conditions 
which,  taking  into  consideration,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
forces  of  nature  that  are  friendly  to  man,  and  the 
forces  of  nature  that  are  hostile  to  man,  and  taking  into 
consideration  the  constitution  of  man  on  the  other,  will 
tend  most  to  help  man  to  use  the  friendly  forces  in  order 
to  subdue  those  that  are  hostile. 

The  human  constitution  in  its  relation  to  society  may 
be  given  the  specific  term  of  the  social  mind.  I  under- 
stand the  words  "social  mind  "  to  include  all  that  part  of 
the  human  constitution  which,  when  developed,  fits  man 
for  social  life,  and,  when  imperfectly  developed,  unfits 

12 


178  INDIVIDUALISM 

man  for  it.^  Thus  in  such  tribes  as  those  of  the  Arabs 
—  prior  to  the  Hegira  — •  the  social  mind  was  intensely 
individualistic,  and  therefore  unfitted  for  social  life; 
whereas  that  of  our  great  Western  nations,  on  the  con- 
trary, has  become  less  individualistic,  and  therefore  more 
fitted  to  social  life.  It  will  be  found,  on  making  a  study 
of  the  social  mind,  that  it  is  an  extremely  complicated 
thing;  for  the  words  "social  mind  "  must  be  deemed  to 
include  not  only  mind,  but  temperament  also,  and  char- 
acter. In  other  words,  the  social  mind  is  not  confined 
to  the  intelligence  of  man,  but  also  to  his  emotions ;  not 
only  to  his  reason,  but  to  his  instincts,  his  passions,  and 
his  capacity  of  self-control. 

In  order  thoroughly  to  understand  the  constitution  of 
the  social  mind,  we  have  to  study  it  from  three  differ- 
ent points  of  view :  — 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  to  study  its  develojDment 
in  lower  animals,  under  the  influence  of  a  purely  natural 
environment. 

In  the  second  place,  we  have  to  study  its  development 
in  man  under  the  influence  of  an  artificial  human 
environment. 

And  in  the  third  place,  we  have  to  study  its  structure 
through  physiology,  psychology,  and  pathology ;  that  is 
to  say,  through  the  actual  structure  of  the  brain,  through 
its  operation  under  normal  conditions,  and  through  its 
operation  under  abnormal  conditions. 

The  evolution  of  the  mind  in  a  purely  natural  envi- 
ronment, and  the  development  of  the  mind  under  the 
influence  of  an  artificial  or  human  environment,  has 
already  been  studied  in  some  detail.  For  the  purpose 
of  this  chapter,  therefore,  we  shall  only  have  to  recapit- 

1  Some  sociologists  use  the  words  "social  miml  "  to  mean  the  mind  of 
the  social  organism  taken  as  a  whole.     This  is  7iot  the  sense  in  which  the 


*o 


words  are  used  in  this  book. 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  179 

ulate  the  conclusions  to  which  we  have  already  come 
under  these  two  heads,  filling  in,  however,  a  few  im- 
portant details.  The  study  of  the  social  mind  by  actual 
analysis  —  that  is  to  say,  by  the  help  of  physiology,  psy- 
chology, and  pathology  —  has  been  only  slightly  at- 
tempted in  previous  pages ;  nor  will  it  be  attempted  in 
any  great  detail  here.  We  should  lose  the  thread  of  the 
argument  were  we  to  attempt  to  deal  with  these  ques- 
tions at  length;  we  shall,  however,  adopt  on  this  sub- 
ject, as  on  previous  subjects,  the  policy  of  avoiding 
matters  of  controversy  and  proceeding  to  the  utmost 
possible  along  lines  of  admitted  fact. 

We  shall,  then,  in  its  natural  order,  begin  by  recapit- 
ulating the  conclusions  to  which  we  have  already  come, 
regarding  the  social  mind  in  the  lower  animals. 

§  1.  Social  Mind  in  the  Lower  Animals 

Natural  selection  primarily  creates  two  types,  —  the 
hunter,  which  is  fierce,  and  the  more  fierce  he  is  the 
more  he  tends  to  be  solitary ;  and  the  hunted,  which  is 
timid  and  tends  to  herd.  The  two  extremes  of  these 
two  types  are  to  be  found  in  the  purely  pursuing  and 
butchering  machine,  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the 
lion  and  tiger,  and  tlie  purely  fleeing  machine,  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  the  hare. 

Midway  between  these  two  extreme  types,  however, 
is  to  be  found  the  large  majority  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
which  tends  by  co-operation  to  make  up  for  lack  of  fit- 
ness, whether  fitness  to  hunt  or  fitness  to  escape.  For 
example,  we  find  wolves  driven  by  cold  to  hunt  in  packs, 
in  order  by  co-operation  to  pull  down  quarry  which  in- 
dividually they  would  be  unable  to  subdue ;  and  we  find 
horses  congregate  in  herds  for  the  purpose  of  jointly 
defending  their  young  against  carnivora,  to  which  other- 


180  INDIVIDUALISM 

wise  the  young  must  fall  a  prey.  The  principle  of 
co-operation  is  found  in  nature  in  almost  every  conceiv- 
able degree,  from  the  purely  temporary  combination  of 
wolves  in  packs  to  the  permanent  community  of  ants 
already  described. 

What  is  the  character  of  the  force  which  brings 
together  animals  for  the  purpose  of  co-operation  and 
mutual  defence,  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to  discuss. 
In  the  sponge,  the  young  are  freely  moving  animals, 
and  unite  only  at  a  period  approaching  maturity.  Here 
is  a  force  acting  upon  individual  animals,  which  at  a 
certain  stage  in  their  growth  brings  them  together  with 
an  irresistible  power  and  unites  them  in  a  mass  so  homo- 
geneous that  the  individuals  of  which  it  is  composed 
lose  all  distinctiveness  and  become  merged  into  a  new 
individuality.  Indeed,  if  the  myxomycetes  is  properly 
classed  under  the  Fungi,  we  should  have  to  recognise 
the  existence  of  this  force  in  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
This  power  seems  to  be  no  other  than  what  Professor 
Giddings  calls  a  consciousness  of  kind,  which  he  regards 
as  the  beginning  of  socialisation.  He  does  not,  how- 
ever, trace  it  as  far  back  as  the  vegetable  kingdom ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  if  he  had  done  so  he  would  not  have 
given  it  the  name  of  consciousness. 

Attention  is  directed  to  this  strange  force  which 
brings  together  the  individual  larvae  of  the  sponge  and 
welds  them  into  a  unit,  because  the  character  of  it  has 
so  far  entirely  baffled  scientific  explanation,  and  tends 
to  prove  that. the  socialising  force  that  brings  together 
animals  for  a  common  purpose  can  hardly  be  attributed 
to  any  conscious  sense  of  advantage  therefrom,  in  the 
individuals  thus  brought  together.  In  otlier  words,  the 
inexplicable  force  which  ])rings  together  the  freely  mov- 
ing larvse  of  the  sponge  into  a  single  immovable  mass 
may  be  the  same  force  which  brings  together  horses  into 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  181 

herds,  bees  into  hives,  and  ants  into  their  still  more  per- 
fect communities,  respectively. 

Purely  temporary  associations,  such  as  those  of  wolves 
in  packs,  involve  little  in  the  way  of  tacit  agreement  to 
tacit  government.  They  are  all  united  in  the  common 
purpose  of  securing  food ;  the  food  is  devoured  as  soon 
as  killed,  and  the  combination  is  maintained  so  long  as 
the  cold,  by  keeping  the  smaller  game  out  of  sight, 
puts  them  under  the  necessity  of  killing  large  game  or 
dying  of  starvation.  As  soon  as  the  cold  disappears, 
the  necessity  for  this  association  disappears  and  the  pack 
disbands.  A  totally  different  state  of  things,  however, 
is  to  be  found  when  the  relation  is  a  more  permanent 
one.  For  example,  when  horses  and  deer  unite  in  herds 
for  the  permanent  purpose  of  defence  against  carnivora, 
there  arises,  as  has  been  explained,  the  necessity  of 
solving  the  first  problem  of  property;  that  is  to  say, 
property  in  the  female,  which  gives  rise  to  sexual  jeal- 
ousy. It  has  been  already  explained  that  Nature's 
scheme  for  solving  this  problem  is  the  usual  scheme  of 
battle ;  and  this  scheme  has  the  incidental  advantage  of 
allowing  only  the  strongest  bucks  and  stallions  to  per- 
petuate the  race. 

When,  however,  we  j)roceed  to  the  next  step  in  com- 
munity life,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  step  involved  in  the 
accumulating  of  food,  —  there  arises  a  second  problem, 
— -that  is  to  say,  the  problem  of  property  in  things. 
Now,  the  problem  of  property  in  things  not  only  presents 
a  new  problem  of  its  own,  but  it  enhances  the  difiiculty 
of  the  problem  of  projjerty  in  the  female;  because 
accumulation  of  food,  such  as  honey,  creates  a  perma- 
nent bond  which  is  inconsistent  with  the  splitting  up  of 
the  herd  that  takes  place  in  the  herbivora  during  the 
breeding  season.  In  other  words,  the  community  has  to 
live  together  all  the  year  round.     This  makes  the  prob- 


182  INDIVIDUALISM 

lem  of  sexual  jealousy  so  acute  that,  as  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  Nature  solves  it  by  the  arbitrary  and  cruel 
measure  of  destroying  one  entire  sex,  and  leaving  the 
work  of  the  community  to  be  done  and  the  benefits  of  it 
to  be  enjoyed  practically  by  the  other  sex  alone.  More- 
over, not  only  is  sexual  jealousy  eliminated  by  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  male  sex,  but  the  competition  which 
characterises  the  struggle  for  existence  of  animals  who 
do  not  live  in  communities  is  eliminated  by  the  apparent 
disappearance  of  selfishness  altogether.  The  habit  or 
instinct  of  sacrifice  that  results  from  the  disappearance 
of  selfishness  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  all  ants  work 
for  the  community  with  apparently  the  same  industry; 
all  seem  prepared  at  any  time  to  defend  and  die  for  it. 
There  is  apparently  no  one  that  has  more  greed  than 
another,  so  that  no  internal  quarrel  seems  to  disturb 
the  harmony  of  the  ant-hill.  In  other  words,  there 
seems  to  be  absolute  uniformity  of  temperament,  auto- 
matic willingness  to  work,  and  a  total  absence  of  all 
those  qualities  which  characterise  the  solitary  carnivora; 
and  when  found  in  man,  are  grouped  in  the  word 
"vice." 

It  is  a  matter  of  no  small  importance  to  bear  clearly 
in  mind  the  fact  that  Nature,  proceeding  tlirough  the 
principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  has  produced 
types  so  opposite  as  that  represented  by  the  selfish  au- 
tomaton in  the  tiger  and  the  unselfish  automaton  in  the 
ant;  the  process  employed  by  Nature  in  the  one  case 
being  competition,  and  the  process  in  the  other  case 
being  co-operation.  At  this  point,  however,  a  careful 
distinction  has  to  be  made ;  for  Nature  nowhere  works 
by  co-operation  alone.  Co-operation  in  the  ant-hill  is 
confined  to  the  ant-liill ;  outside  the  ant-liill  there  is  the 
same  competition  as  cliaracterises  the  general  scheme  of 
Nature.     lu  other  words,  every  ant-hill  is  brought  into 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  18 


o 


competition  with  every  other  ant-hill,  and  although 
occasionally  many  ant-hills  are  found  grouped  so  as  to 
form  one  large  community,  there  is  found  between  com- 
munities a  savage  war. 

It  is  the  competition  between  different  communities 
of  ants  which  has  caused  those  communities  to  sur- 
vive in  which  co-operation  is  most  advantageous  and 
most  complete.  Every  individual  that  was  unfitted  for 
community  life  by  unwillingness  to  work  or  desire  to 
appropriate  to  his  own  advantage  the  property  of  the 
community  or  the  work  of  another,  or  individuals,  in  a 
word,  who  were  lazy  or  selfish,  have  been  mercilessly 
destroyed,  whether  by  the  process  of  survival  of  the 
fittest  or  by  the  direct  action  of  the  other  ants  in 
the  community.^  Communities  of  ants,  therefore,  are 
characterised  by  competition  without  and  co-operation 
within ;  the  result  of  this  competition  being  to  produce 
an  automaton  free  from  selfishness. 

If,  now,  the  result  of  co-operation  within,  acting  subject 
to  the  principle  of  competition  without,  be  compared 
with  the  result  of  competition  alone,  we  cannot  but  be 
struck  by  the  fact  that,  while  competition  alone  produces 
the  most  bloodthirsty  of  all  living  creatures,  co-operation 
produces  a  living  automaton  which  within  the  commun- 
ity seems  to  be  free  from  all  those  vices  which  charac- 

1  It  is  undesirable  to  introduce  here  speculation  as  to  the  method  by 
which  such  individuals  were  disposed  of.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
however,  that  in  communities  of  bees  (which  are  far  less  perfect  from  the 
collectivist  point  of  view  than  those  of  ants)  some  bees  are  found  to  rob 
one  another  of  the  honey  they  have  collected  ;  these  robber  bees  are 
punished  by  the  other  bees  in  the  hive.  In  the  same  way  it  has  been 
observed  that  when  flocks  of  birds  return  to  their  old  nesting-place,  the 
birds  return  each  to  her  own  nest,  and  any  attempt  of  one  bird  to  appro- 
priate the  nest  of  another  immediately  brings  upon  her  the  resentment 
of  the  whole  flock.  Individual  sparrows,  too,  who  attempt  to  rob  one  nest 
of  straw  to  make  their  own  are  immediately  set  upou  by  the  other  spar- 
rows in  the  flock. 


184  INDIVIDUALISM 

terise  communities  of  men.  This,  however,  does  not 
prevent  the  same  unselfish  automaton  waging  vigorous 
warfare  upon  all  individuals  belonging  to  other  com- 
munities ;  and  thus  we  have  the  same  automaton  under 
two  different  conditions  acting  with  the  self-sacrilice  of 
a  saint  in  the  one  case,  and  the  ferocity  of  a  soldier  in 
the  other. 

Such  are  the  results  of  Nature  acting  through  natural 
laws  without  interference  at  the  hands  of  men.  Let  us 
now  turn  to  the  study  of  how  this  process  has  been 
modified  by  the  conscious  effort  of  man. 

§  2.  The  Sociai.  Mind  of  Maij^" 

Under  this  heading  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  do  more 
than  recapitulate  what  has  been  already  pointed  out  in 
the  previous  volume.  The  striking  and  essential  differ- 
ence which  characterises  man  and  differentiates  him 
from  the  lower  animals  is  his  large  capacity  for  self- 
control.  The  points,  therefore,  which  will  interest  us 
most  in  studying  the  development  of  human  society,  are 
the  two  questions  how  self-control  solved,  or  attempted 
to  solve,  the  problem  arising  out  of  property  in  the 
female,  or  sexual  jealousy,  and  how  self-control  at- 
tempted to  solve  the  problem  of  property  in  things. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  races  which  solved  the 
question  of  sexual  relations  in  the  manner  which  ex- 
acted most  self-control  —  that  is  to  saj'',  by  permanent 
monogamy  —  were  the  nations  which  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  have  survived;  and  we  have  also  seen  that 
self-control  rests  at  the  foundation  of  the  notion  of  pri- 
vate property;  that  the  idea  of  property  involves  not 
only  the  right  of  every  individual  to  the  product  of  his 
own  labour,  but  also  involves  the  obligation  to  respect 
a  similar  right  in  others.     As  the  family  grew  into  the 


THE  RESULT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM  185 

State,  the  notion  of  private  property  gave  rise  to  the 
obligation  to  support  the  State,  and  also  the  obligation 
to  contribute  some  fraction  of  personal  liberty  to  the 
State;  even  to  the  extent,  under  certain  conditions,  of 
laying  down  one's  life  for  the  State.  But  men  differ 
from  ants  not  only  in  the  possession  of  the  faculty  of 
self-control,  but  also  in  the  fact  that  the  higher  up  in 
the  animal  scale  we  go,  the  greater  is  the  diversity  of 
function  we  find,  and  the  greater  the  difference  between 
one  individual  and  another. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge,  there  is  less  difference  be- 
tween individuals  in  as  simply  organised  an  insect  as  an 
ant  than  in  as  highly  a  differentiated  animal  as  man; 
and  not  only  do  we  observe  great  differences  be- 
tween men  in  those  qualities  which  men  possess  more 
or  less  in  common  with  other  animals,  but  perhaps  there 
is  no  quality  in  which  men  differ  from  one  another  more 
than  in  the  quality  of  self-control,  which  men  alone  to 
any  degree  possess.  Again,  not  only  do  men  differ  in 
power  of  self-control,  but  they  differ  in  willingness  to 
use  this  power  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  or  for 
the  benefit  of  themselves.  Not  only  do  they  differ  in 
power  of  productive  toil,  but  they  differ  in  willingness 
to  give  the  benefit  of  this  power  of  production  to  the 
community;  and,  last  but  not  least,  not  only  do  they 
differ  greatly  in  the  power  of  commanding  the  sul)mis- 
sion  of  one  another,  but  they  differ  also  in  willingness 
to  use  this  power  for  the  benefit  of  all,  or  only  for  the 
benefit  of  themselves.  ' 

Again,  the  development  of  human  intelligence  could 
not  but  make  it  clear  to  men  who  possess  any  one  of 
these  three  powers  —  that  is  to  say,  the  power  of  self- 
control,  the  power  of  productiveness,  and  the  power  of 
commanding  submission  —  to  any  remarkable  degree 
that  such  a  man  could  exercise  these  powers  with  infi- 


186  INDIVIDUALISM 

nitely  more  advantage  to  himself  if,  instead  of  putting 
them  at  the  disposal  of  the  community,  he  used  them  to 
improve  his  own  position  at  the  expense  of  those  about 
him.  And  not  only  did  some  men  possess  these  three 
powers  to  a  very  great  extent,  but  others  were  wanting 
in  these  powers  in  a  corresponding  degree.  We  have, 
therefore,  by  the  side  of  the  few  who  possess  these 
powers  in  a  large  degree,  many  who,  on  the  contrary, 
were  influenced  by  corresponding  willingness  to  submit, 
willingness  to  toil,  and  willingness  to  exercise  self- 
control  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  rather  than 
for  that  of  themselves. 

It  became  inevitable,  therefore,  that  those  who  had 
most  power  became  the  masters  of  those  who  had  most 
willingness ;  and  as  the  faculty  of  power  coupled  with 
selfishness  inevitably  goes  to  make  up  the  lowest  type 
of  individualist,  so  the  faculty  of  power  coupled  with 
unselfishness  goes  to  make  up  the  highest  type  of  social- 
ist. We  have  thus  within  the  same  community  two 
kinds  of  social  mind,  one  of  which  is  by  nature  equipped 
to  enslave  the  other. 

The  effect  of  this  inequality  in  man  has  been,  there- 
fore, to  create  a  society  presenting  a  marked  contrast  to 
that  of  the  ants ;  for  whereas  the  latter  have  eliminated 
all  individuals  possessing  selfish  or  anti-social  qualities, 
human  society  has  delivered  over  all  that  j)art  of  hu- 
manity which  possesses  social  qualities  into  the  hands 
of  the  few  who  possess  the  anti-social.  The  docility 
and  unselfishness  of  the  many  have  delivered  them  over 
to  the  imperiousness  and  egotism  of  the  few.^ 

Another  process  has  been  at  work,  singularly  enough, 
to  produce  the  same  result.     The  law  of  nature  tends 

1  Obviously  there  are  exceptions.  The  contention  is  not  that  unselfish 
men  never  conio  to  the  front,  but  that  the  main  tendency  is  to  put  govern- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  selfish. 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  187 

to  make  the  muscularly  strong  prevail  over  the  muscu- 
larly  weak;  but  the  mental  development  of  man  has 
set  up  intelligence  to  fight  muscular  strength.  Now, 
religion  is  the  natural  ally  of  intelligence  in  its  warfare 
with  physical  strength;  but  the  same  tendency  which 
makes  intelligence  the  instrument  of  selfishness  tends  to 
make  religion  also  the  instrument  of  both.  The  result 
of  this  is  that  selfishness  has  used  religion  as  well  as 
intelligence  to  make  the  muscularly  strong  but  intellec- 
tually weak  the  servants  of  the  muscularly  weak  but 
intellectually  strong. 

The  result  of  the  operation  of  these  forces  has  been 
that,  whereas  under  the  law  of  nature  the  individual 
is  sacrificed  to  the  interests  of  the  community,  under 
the  law  of  man  the  community  is  made  to  serve  the 
interests  of  the  individual ;  and  inasmuch  as  the  alliance 
between  selfishness,  intelligence,  and  religion  has  con- 
tributed to  subject  the  many  to  the  few,  the  final  result 
has  been  to  make  the  community  serve  the  interests  of 
the  few  rather  than  that  of  the  many. 

And  so  it  has  happened  that  the  intelligence  of  a  few 
men  using  and  abusing  the  docility  and  strength  of  the 
many  has  created  an  artificial  environment,  the  conse- 
quences of  which  have  been  already  pointed  out.^ 

They  may  be  recapitulated  as  follows :  whereas  under 
the  system  of  nature  the  struggle  is  a  struggle  for  life, 
under  that  of  man  it  is  a  struggle  for  wealth,  power,  and 
consideration;  whereas  under  the  system  of  nature  the 
struggle  favours  bulk  and  muscle,  under  that  of  man 
it  favours  brain  and  nerve ;  whereas  under  the  system  of 
nature  the  struggle  favours  the  strong,  under  that  of 
man  the  struggle  favours  the  rich;  and  perhaps  the 
most  serious  consequence  of  this  artificial  environment 
is  that  whereas  under  the  system  of  nature  the  types 

1  Vol.  I.  pp.  330  et  seq. 


188  INDIVIDUALISM 

most  favoured  by  the  environment  are  the  most  fertile, 
and  the  types  least  favoured  by  the  environment  least 
fertile,  under  the  system  of  man  the  types  most  favoured 
by  the  environment  are  least  fertile,  and  the  types  least 
favoured  by  the  environment  are  the  most  fertile.  So 
that  whereas  man  has  set  up  for  himself  intelligence  and 
morality  as  the  types  to  which  he  admittedly  would 
tend,  it  is  not  the  intelligent  and  moral  type  which 
tends  to  perpetuate  itself,  but  that  which  is  least  intelli- 
gent and  often  for  that  reason  the  least  moral  also ;  be- 
cause the  human  environment,  by  showering  its  blessings 
upon  the  few  rich,  has  reduced  the  multitude  to  a  con- 
dition of  poverty  which  tends  to  promote  neither  a  high 
standard  of  intelligence  nor  a  high  standard  of  morality. 

But  the  tendency  of  the  rich  to  die  childless,  while 
the  poor  breed  more  children  than  they  can  provide  for,  is 
by  no  means  the  worst  feature  of  the  artificial  conditions 
created  by  men.  For  although  it  has  been  shown  that 
man's  conscious  efforts  towards  the  improvement  of  the 
race  have  always  been  directed  towards  diminishing  the 
inequality  and  injustice  of  Nature,  a  study  of  its  history 
demonstrates  that  these  conscious  efforts  have  been 
allowed  to  operate  at  only  rare  and  fitful  intervals; 
whereas  selfishness  has  operated  all  the  time,  and  the 
study  of  its  history  shows  that  so  powerful  has  been 
the  selfishness  of  the  few  in  subjugating  the  docility  of 
the  many,  that  even  the  noblest  impulses  of  men  have 
in  the  end  invariably  been  appropriated  by  human  sel- 
fishness to  its  own  ends. 

Thus  we  have  seen  the  religion  of  Mohammed  serve 
only  to  corrupt  the  court  at  Bagdad,  and  that  of  Christ 
to  bolster  the  thrones  of  kings  in  F.urope  and  the  splen- 
dour of  a  papal  court  at  llonie.  We  have  seen  the  re- 
ligious enthusiasm  which  inspired  the  Crusades  used  by 
Venice  to  conquer  Constantinople,  and  by  the  Church 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  189 

to  acquire  one-third  of  the  whole  property  of  Europe. 
We  have  seen  municipalities  created  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  the  interests  of  honest  toil  become  pawns  in 
the  game  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope.  We 
have  seen  them  used  by  the  nobles  to  defeat  the  king 
and  used  by  the  king  to  defeat  the  nobles.  We  have 
seen  industry,  organised  in  the  shape  of  guilds  to  defend 
the  artisan  against  both  the  king  and  noble,  create  a 
new  tyranny  equal  to  that  of  either.  We  have  seen 
the  cry  of  liberty  raised  against  the  tyranny  of  the  guild, 
only  to  hand  over  the  workingman  to  the  merciless 
tyranny  of  the  Market ;  and  in  his  efforts  to  free  himself 
from  that  of  the  Market,  we  have  seen  him  once  more 
subjected  to  that  of  the  Trade  Union.  So  that  whether 
we  look  a  'priori  at  the  conditions  under  which  man  is 
placed  by  the  environment  which  he  himself  has  created, 
or  a  posteriori  to  the  history  of  his  actual  struggle 
with  this  environment,  we  find  ourselves  inevitably  con- 
fronted by  the  fact  that  this  human  environment  has  for 
its  necessary  effect  to  subject  the  many  to  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  few,  and  to  perpetuate  the  lowest  types  in 
the  race  rather  than  the  best. 

The  degenerating  consequences  of  such  a  system  could 
not  but  have  resulted  fatally  for  the  race,  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  under  it  degeneration  tends  to  take 
place  chiefly  at  the  top  and  bottom,  —  that  is  to  say, 
amongst  the  most  successful  and  the  least  successful, 
leaving  the  moderately  successful  to  maintain  the  race. 
So  that  in  spite  of  the  misery  of  the  very  poor  and  the 
enervation  of  the  very  rich,  the  race  has  not  only  main- 
tained itself,  but  even  obviously  improved ;  and  out  of 
the  conflicts,  or  rather  revolutions,  in  consequence  of 
which  the  selfish  minority  has  over  and  over  again  been 
deposed,  only  to  find  its  place  taken  by  another  minority 
equally  selfish,  the  human  mind  is  gradually  awakening 


190  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  a  more  intelligent  and  more  moral  apprehension  of 
its  social  duties.  This  development  is  taking  place  in 
a  manner  which  ought  to  command  our  careful  attention ; 
for  if  we  return  to  the  extreme  types  presented  by 
nature, — that  is  to  say,  to  the  unselfish  automaton 
observed  in  the  ant  and  the  selfish  automaton  observed 
in  the  tiger,  —  we  shall  find  that  while  the  governing 
class  in  mankind  finds  it  necessary  to  give  up  some 
of  the  selfishness  which  characterises  the  tiger,  the  un- 
selfish automaton  in  the  governed,  whose  docility  has 
rendered  easy  the  control  of  the  governing  class,  is 
gradually  becoming  less  docile,  less  unselfish,  and  more 
clear  in  the  understanding  of  what  the  governed  call 
their  rights. 

And  so  throughout  the  history  of  man  the  develop- 
ment has  been  always  from  the  extreme  type  towards  a 
medium  type,  in  which  there  is  retained  some  of  the 
docility  of  the  ant  with  some  of  the  selfishness  of  the 
carnivora. 

We  may  now  pass  to  the  consideration  of  what  light 
is  thrown  upon  this  medium  type  by  the  study  of 
the  actual  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  and  the 
method  in  which  it  works  under  normal  and  abnormal 
conditions. 

§  3.   Physiology  of  the  Mind 

Psychologists  have  long  been  familiar  with  the  fact 
that  the  human  mind  is  more  complex  than  it  appears 
to  be ;  that  consciousness  cannot  be  depended  upon  to 
give  us  a  complete  account  of  its  own  workings,  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  the  mind  seems  to  work  as  much 
outside  of  consciousness  as  within  it.  They  had,  for 
example,  to  account  for  the  capacity  of  the  mind  to  keep 
track  of  time  during  sleep,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  191 

many  men  can  wake  at  whatever  hour  they  decide  to 
awake.  Again,  the  mind  can  be  set  working  at  the 
effort  to  recall  a  name,  and,  though  consciously  occupied 
with  other  things,  the  search  is  continued  until  suddenly 
the  name  appears  in  consciousness  and  the  recognition 
of  it  actually  interrupts  consciousness  engaged  in  other 
things.  Psychologists  have  called  this  unconscious 
operation  of  the  mind  sub-consciousness. 

Psychologists  have  also  been  long  familiar  with  the 
fact  that  there  was  within  the  conscious  mind,  as  it 
were,  and  generally  subject  to  it,  an  automaton  that 
seemed  capable  of  transacting  most  of  the  business  of 
life  without  the  assistance  of  conscious  volition;  such 
an  automaton  is  startlingly  revealed  to  us  in  the  well- 
known  case  of  the  retired  soldier,  who,  carrying  his 
dinner  across  the  street,  dropped  it  in  automatic  response 
to  a  sudden  and  authoritative  order  to  present  arms. 
Somnambulism  also  furnishes  an  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  the  human  automaton  can  operate  with  singular 
skill  in  the  absence  of  all  consciousness.  But  it  is  to 
hypnotism  and  certain  cases  of  mental  shock  and  hysteria 
that  we  chiefly  owe  our  knowledge  of  this  sub-conscious 
automaton.  The  experiments  of  many  physicians  in 
different  fields  have  now  substantiated  the  fact  beyond 
the  possibility  of  doubt  that  the  mind  is  like  a  tele- 
phone system,  consisting  of  numerous  simple  and  com- 
plex circuits,  —  as,  for  example,  a  simple  circuit  of 
telephones  in  a  single  building,  with  a  central  system  of 
its  own;  these  circuits,  connected  with  those  of  other 
buildings,  —  as,  for  example,  all  the  buildings  in  the 
Borough  of  Manhattan  and  centralised  in  the  borough ; 
these  —  that  is  to  say,  the  various  systems  of  the  va- 
rious boroughs,  —  again  connected  and  centralised  at  a 
central  office  of  Greater  New  York,  and  that  of  Greater 
New  York  connected  with  those  of  other  cities  and  cen- 


192  INDIVIDUALISM 

tralised  at  Washington,  every  city  being  thus  put  into 
communication  with  all  the  other  great  systems  of  the 
country.  This  vast  and  complicated  telephone  system 
can  be  disassociated  so  that  a  part  of  it  will  operate  by 
itself;  New  York  can  be  cut  off  from  Washington,  and 
Washington  thereby  prevented  from  exercising  any 
control  over  it. 

This  analogy,  however,  is  deficient  in  not  accounting 
for  one  of  the  most  essential  and  interesting  character- 
istics of  the  human  mind,  —  that  is  to  say,  its  faculty  for 
self-consciousness.  It  is  probable  that  animals  possess 
very  nearly  as  complete  an  automatic  system  for  the 
conveyance  of  nerve  messages  as  man;  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  fact  that  the  whole  nervous  system 
which  man  has  in  common  with  the  lower  animals  is 
subjected  in  man  to  a  higher  centralisation  or  control, 
and  that  this  control  is  at  the  same  time  the  seat  of 
man's  self-consciousness  and  of  his  self-restraint. 

If  we  examine  the  structure  of  the  brain,  we  find  a 
large  part  of  the  nerves  of  the  body  centre  there ;  the 
nerves  affecting  the  movements  of  the  tongue  centre  in 
the  inferior  extremity  of  the  so-called  Broca's  convolu- 
tion, injury  to  which  produces  aphasia,  or  disorder  of 
the  faculty  of  speech.  The  nerves  of  the  eye  are  also 
centred  in  the  brain,  and  there  are  centred  also  the 
nerves  of  the  nose,  the  mouth,  and  the  ears.  Again, 
all  these  various  nerves  are  connected  in  another  portion 
of  the  brain,  so  that  a  healthy  and  useful  relation  can 
be  established  between  the  various  functions  in  the 
body.  For  example,  the  flight  of  a  pigeon  involves  not 
only  the  use  of  the  wings  and  the  use  of  the  eyes  to 
direct  the  flight,  but  also  the  faculty  of  correlating  the 
messages  which  a  pigeon  receives  through  the  eye  and 
directs  to  the  wing,  thus  enabling  it  to  direct  its  flight 
in  a  manner  to  avoid  the  obstacles  thereto.     Now,  it  is 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  193 

possible,  by  removing  a  part  of  the  brain  of  a  pigeon, 
to  deprive  it  of  this  correlating  faculty;  so  that,  al- 
though the  pigeon  can  see  and  can  fly,  it  is  unable  to 
direct  its  movements  in  correlation  with  the  objects 
which  it  sees. 

It  is  possible  to  trace  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system  from  the  simplest  form,  in  which  it  simply  con- 
veys a  message  from  the  surface  of  the  body  to  the 
muscle,  to  that  in  which  it  conveys  a  message  from  the 
surface  of  the  body  to  a  centre  in  the  brain,  which  con- 
nects it  with  different  muscles  of  the  body ;  this  system 
being  connected  again  with  another  system  of  nerves, 
which  come  from  the  eyes,  ears,  nose,  and  mouth,  all 
of  them  being  centralised  so  that  the  whole  animal 
moves  in  obedience  to  all  the  messages  it  receives  from 
all  these  organs,  whether  they  come  in  consciousness 
or  not.  This  is  the  machinery  which  men  have  in 
common  with  the  lower  animals.  But  in  addition  to 
this  machinery,  man  has  the  faculty  of  controlling 
this  machinery  to  a  certain  extent  through  doubtless  an 
additional  central  nervous  system.  ^  And  this  additional 
central  nervous  system  seems  at  once  to  be  the  seat, 
not  only  of  his  self-control,  but  of  his  self -consciousness. 
The  evidence  of  this  additional  central  nervous  system 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  it  can  be  disassociated 
from  the  purely  automatic  system  that  man  has  in  com- 
mon with  the  lower  animals,  either  by  accident,  disease, 
or  hypnotism ;  so  that  a  man  can  be  divested  of  all  self- 
control  and  all  self-consciousness  by,  as  it  were,  cutting 
off  the  new  central  nervous  system  from  the  rest.  When 
this  faculty  of  self-control  and  self-consciousness  is,  as 
it  were,  shunted  off  the  nervous  system  by  hypnotism, 

1  It  cannot  be  stated  positively  that  no  animals  possess  this  developed 
nervous  system,  though  it  can  be  said  that  if  they  do  possess  it,  it  is  de- 
veloped only  to  a  limited  degi-ee. 

13 


194  INDIVIDUALISM 

disease,  or  accidental  shock,  the  subject  remains  per- 
fectly capable  of  all  the  automatic  actions  of  the  human 
body;  nay,  more,  the  automatic  machinery  will  comply 
with  any  suggestion  made  to  it,  the  faculty  of  self- 
control  or  self-direction  being  no  longer  in  operation. 

No  one  who  has  witnessed  experiments  on  hypnotic 
subjects  can  fail  to  admit  the  duality  of  the  mind,  or 
recognise  that  there  is  in  man  an  automaton  which, 
though  in  a  normal  state  under  his  control,  can  by 
hypnotism  be  withdrawn  from  his  control  as  completely 
as  though  one  were  connected  with  the  other  by  an  elec- 
tric switch. 

Physiology,  too,  confirms  the  application  of  this 
analogy.  The  threads  which  unite  the  nerve  centres  are 
not  continuous;  on  the  contrary,  every  nerve  centre 
appears  to  have  threads  of  its  own,  which  remain  under 
normal  conditions  in  contact  with  those  of  the  other 
nerve  centres  with  which  they  are  connected.  It  seems 
probable  that  when  one  set  of  nerve  centres  is  put  out 
of  relation  with  the  others,  by  hypnotism  or  otherwise, 
contact  is  broken  between  the  centres  at  the  point  where 
the  threads  of  each  centre  meet  in  much  the  same  way 
as  in  an  electric  circuit. 

All  experiments  made  upon  hysterical  subjects  by 
suggestion,  or  upon  hypnotic  subjects  by  hypnotism, 
seem  to  be  the  result  of  breaking  the  connection  between 
one  set  of  nerve  centres  and  another;  and  the  most 
familiar  dislocation  that  takes  place  is  that  l)etween  the 
automaton  which  man  shares  with  lower  animals,  and 
the  self-conscious,  self-controlling  force  which  is  peculiar 
to  himself.  Wlicn  this  dislocation  has  been  effected, 
the  subject  in  whom  it  has  taken  place  will  act  with  all 
the  docility  and  something  of  the  brutality  of  a  lower 
animal,  in  conformity  witli  tlie  slightest  suggestion  made; 
and,  however  gentle  may  be  the  disposition  of  tlie  subject 


THE  RESULT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM  195 

in  a  normal  state,  nothing  can  exceed  the  ferocity  with 
which  the  subject  will  act  if  the  suggestion  be  one  to 
elicit  it.  Suggest  to  the  subject  to  be  gay,  and  the  sub- 
ject will  laugh;  suggest  sorrow,  and  the  subject  will 
weep;  suggest  dignity,  and  the  subject  will  draw  him- 
self up  to  his  full  height;  and  yet  there  is  no  act  so 
contemptible  or  foolish  of  which,  in  obedience  to  sug- 
gestion, he  will  not  be  guilty;  if,  however,  connection 
be  restored,  the  subject  returns  again  to  the  normal 
state,  once  more  self-conscious  and  once  more  capable 
of  habitual  self-control.^ 

When,  therefore,  we  bring  together  the  conclusions 
which  result  from  an  examination  of  the  human  mind 
from  the  point  of  view  of  natural  evolution,  human 
environment,  and  a  study  of  the  actual  constitution  of 
the  brain,  the  result  may  be  summed  up  briefly  as 
follows :  — 

First,  as  the  result  of  purely  natural  evolution,  man 
possesses  both  the  anti-social  solitary  ferocity  of  the 
carnivora  and  the  social,  gentle  docility  of  the  ant. 

Second,  the  mind  is  composed  of  two  different  parts, 

—  the  automaton,  which  man  shares  with  the  lower  ani- 
mals, and  the  power  of  self-consciousness  and  self- 
control,  which  is  peculiar  to  himself. 

Third,  while  the  institutions  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
artificial  environment  which  man  has  made  for  himself 

—  have,  in  a  measure,  tended  to  promote  the  exercise  of 
self-control,  that  one  of  his  institutions  which  is  known 
as  commercialism  has  been  perpetually  appealing  to  his 
selfishness,  so  that  the  automaton  in  him  has  contracted 
habits  of  pursuing  selfish  ends  which  have  become  in 

1  This  is  so  familiar  to  those  who  have  made  any  study  of  hypnotism 
that  no  time  will  be  wasted  in  repeating  its  various  phenomena.  A  recent 
useful  book  on  the  subject  is  that  of  Dr.  Boris  Sidis,  —  "The  Psychology 
of  Suggestion,"  —  to  which  the  reader  is  referred. 


196  INDIVIDUALISM 

great  measure  uncontrollable;  and  his  intelligence  has 
become  so  far  an  instrument  of  selfishness  that  the  better 
impulses  in  his  nature  are  in  continual  clanger  of  being 
suppressed  thereby. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  we  have  studied,  in  the 
first  place,  the  environment  furnished  by  nature ;  in  the 
second  place  the  environment  created  by  man ;  and  in 
the  third  place  we  started  upon  the  study  of  man  him- 
self in  order  to  come  to  some  conclusion  as  to  the  extent 
to  which  man  is  still  capable  of  modification  by  these 
two  environments. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  if  the  mind  of  man,  instead  of 
being  as  homogeneous  as  we  might  without  knowledge 
of  its  structure  be  induced  to  believe,  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, composed  of  two  totally  different  elements,  one 
of  which  is  practically  indistinguishable  from  that  of 
the  lower  animals,  and  the  other  of  which  is,  on  the 
contrarj',  peculiar  to  man,  we  have  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  effects  of  environment,  whether  natural  or 
human,  upon  these  two  factors.  Indeed,  the  inconsis- 
tencies of  our  system  of  education  and  the  hybrid  results 
of  it  are  both  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  we  have 
failed  to  take  into  account  the  dual  character  of  the 
social  mind.  Thus,  while  religion  has  been  addressing 
itself  to  the  conscious  factor,  and  urging  it  to  the  attain- 
ment of  high  ideals,  industrialism  has  been  training  the 
automaton  so  that  it  has  acquired  uncontrollable  habits 
altogether  inconsistent  with  these  ideals.  Every  man 
who  has  made  efforts  to  control  his  temper  will  recog- 
nise the  operation  of  these  opposite  forces,  —  in  the  first 
place  the  strong  desire  to  control  the  temper,  and  in 
the  second  place  the  uncontrollable  force  of  habit  in 
giving  expression  to  it. 

To  this  fact  is  doubtless  due  much  of  the  inconsis- 
tency with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  human  mind. 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  197 

We  have  already  observed  this  inconsistency  in  the  ant, 
which,  though  instinctively  gentle  to  its  fellows,  shows 
equally  instinctive  fierceness  to  its  enemies.  Just  in 
the  same  way  a  man  who  is  a  pattern  father  and  hus- 
band is  often  a  merciless  business  man;  and  we  are 
familiar  with  the  fact  that  the  most  ferocious  soldiers 
are  often  the  gentlest  husbands.  But  there  is,  perhaps, 
no  arena  in  which  inconsistencies  of  character  are  more 
developed  than  in  politics ;  and  this  is  doubtless  because 
in  our  relations  to  one  another  the  effects  of  our  conduct 
are  immediately  seen,  whereas,  in  our  relations  to  the 
State,  the  effects  of  our  conduct  are  for  the  most  part 
not  seen.  Thus,  a  man  who  will  not  consciously  cheat 
his  neighbour  will  have  no  hesitation  in  cheating  the 
State ;  a  man  who  will  not  surrender  his  political  prin- 
ciples for  a  gift  of  money  from  an  individual  will  not 
hesitate  to  sacrifice  his  political  principles  for  a  public 
office  from  the  State.  And  so  the  mere  fact  that  the 
State  is  an  impersonal  thing,  does  not  suffer  pain,  or,  if 
it  does,  abstains  from  crying  out,  blunts  our  moral  sense 
to  injuries  affecting  it.  The  result  of  this  is  that  a  code 
of  morals  obtains,  as  regards  our  duty  to  the  State,  quite 
different  from  that  which  controls  us  in  our  relations  to 
one  another.  Now,  the  State  is  part  of  the  environment 
which  man  has  created  for  himself,  and  is  indeed  the 
largest  part  of  it;  and  if  our  moral  sense  is  blunted  in 
our  service  to  the  State,  it  is  blunted  in  our  relations  to 
one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  our  environment. 

Again,  in  the  relation  of  an  individual  to  the  State, 
there  is  exactly  the  same  inconsistency  of  action  in  the 
automatic  and  the  conscious  parts  of  man  as  has  been 
already  described  in  relation  of  the  individual  to  religion 
and  commercialism ;  for  at  one  moment  all  that  is  con- 
temptible in  us  is  engaged  in  shirking  the  smallest 
duties  to  the  State,  and  at  another  we  are  laying  down 


198  INDIVIDUALISM 

our  lives  in  obedience  to  the  highest  conceivable  ideal  of 
patriotism.  The  history  of  New  York  furnishes  illus- 
trations of  this  inconsistency  of  action:  our  ancestors 
seemed,  in  the  early  days  of  the  colonies,  to  be  animated 
by  a  high  sense  of  self-respect  in  demanding  self- 
government  from  those  who  were  sent  out  to  govern  them 
by  both  Dutch  and  British  governments  alike ;  and  3'et, 
when  the  commercial  spirit  was  aroused  by  the  wars  in 
which  England  was  involved  with  France  and  the  In- 
dians, the  good  burghers  of  New  York  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  of  driving  the  hardest  of  bargains  with 
the  armies  which  England  sent  out  for  their  defence,  of 
making  the  needs  of  their  neighbouring  colonies  an 
occasion  for  extortion,  and  even  of  furnishing  weapons 
at  a  high  price  to  the  Indians,  for  the  purpose  of  using 
them  against  these  very  neighbours.  Nevertheless, 
within  a  few  years,  we  find  them  rallying  to  the  popular 
cause  in  revolt  against  the  greatest  military  power  in  the 
world,  and  refusing  to  lay  down  their  arms  until  that 
revolt  was  crowned  with  success.  Once,  however,  the 
victory  won,  they  became  engaged  in  a  shameful  and 
continuous  scramble  for  political  office,  until  the  cr}^  of 
freedom  for  the  negro  and  of  honour  for  the  national 
flag  aroused  them  anew  to  deeds  of  patriotism,  only  at 
last  to  relapse  again  into  the  same  vulgar  struggle  for 
office  and  for  wealth. 

Nor  is  the  history  of  New  York  peculiar  in  this  re- 
spect; whatever  be  the  people,  we  cannot  but  recognise 
that  so  long  as  there  is  a  spark  of  vitality  in  the  people 
it  inevitably  responds  to  the  call  which  is  made  on  them. 
If  the  State  bids  its  citizens  grow  rich,  every  man  sets 
himself  to  the  work  with  merciless  disregard  for  the 
consequences  to  his  neighbour;  if  the  State,  on  the  con- 
trary, asks  them  to  sacrifice  the  dearest  thing  they  have, 
they  make  the  sacrifice  with  a  willingness   inconceiv- 


THE  RESULT   OF  INDIVIDUALISM  199 

ably  inconsistent  with  the  greed  they  had  only  a  moment 
before  exhibited. 

It  does  not  seem,  therefore,  unreasonable  to  believe 
that  the  character  of  the  State,  and  particularly  the 
character  of  the  call  which  the  State  makes  upon  its 
citizens,  is  of  consummate  importance  in  forming  na- 
tional character;  and  before  we  leave  the  subject  it 
may  be  well  to  consider  a  little  more  closely  to  what 
extent  and  in  what  manner  the  social  mind  responds  to 
the  influences  about  it. 

Under  the  dual  theory  of  the  social  mind  above  de- 
scribed, it  is  found  to  consist  of  very  opposite  factors : 
one  is  automatic,  unconscious,  and  animal ;  the  other  is 
voluntary,  conscious,  and  human.  Now,  it  seems  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  the  unconscious  automaton  is  as 
necessary  a  product  of  the  environment  as  the  ant  is,  or 
the  ape ;  it  will  become  exactly  what  the  environment 
makes  it.  And  if  the  environment  perpetually  appeals 
to  its  selfishness,  it  will  be  as  selfish  as  the  ape ;  whereas 
if  it  appeal,  on  the  contrary,  always  to  its  unselfishness, 
it  will  become  as  unselfish  as  the  ant.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  observe  that,  if  this  be  true,  the  competitive 
system  tends  to  result  in  an  automaton  uncontrollably 
and  mercilessly  selfish. 

As  soon  as  the  Christian  Church  allied  itself  with  the 
Roman  State,  the  effect  of  the  competitive  system  of  the 
Roman  State  became  so  obviously  hostile  to  the  religious 
life  that  all  who  were  bent  on  leading  religious  lives 
felt  driven  to  protect  themselves  from  it  by  living  in 
communities  especially  created  for  that  purpose ;  and  the 
monastic  system  created  by  this  imperative  necessity 
became  at  last  so  extensive  that  it  threatened  to  become 
more  powerful  than  the  State.  But  just  as  selfishness 
corrupted  the  Church,  so  it  corrupted   the   monastery 


200  INDIVIDUALISM 

also ;  and  the  monastic  system  fell  as  much  because  of 
the  greed  within  its  walls,  as  because  of  the  greed  with- 
out them.  The  fact  of  monasticism,  however,  serves  to 
corroborate  the  theory  that  the  religious  life  and  the 
competitive  life  are  inconsistent  with  one  another ;  and 
the  vitality  and  permanence  of  such  communities  as 
that  of  Sisters  of  Charity  indicates  the  importance  of 
keeping  those  engaged  in  unselfish  lives  from  the  inevi- 
table tendencies  of  the  environment  which  the  gospel 
has  characterised  in  the  words,  "the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  devil." 

Fortunately,  however,  the  unconscious  automaton  is 
more  or  less  under  the  control  of  a  conscious  will.  But 
when  we  come  to  consider  how  far  the  lives  of  those 
about  us  are  determined  by  habit,  and  how  far  by  con- 
scious will,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  the 
vast  majority  of  our  fellow-citizens  are  probably  con- 
trolled by  habit  altogether;  that  only  a  few  are  ever 
controlled  by  conscious  will,  and  even  these  few  are 
controlled  by  conscious  will  only  for  an  insignificant 
portion  of  their  whole  lives.  Nor  is  this  all ;  for,  as  has 
been  already  observed,  when  the  conscious  will  does 
undertake  to  resist  the  force  of  habit,  the  force  of  habit 
is  generally  found  so  overwhelming  that  the  conscious 
will  can  make  but  little,  if  any,  headway  against  it. 

It  would  seem,  under  these  circumstances,  as  though 
the  struggle  of  the  conscious  will  to  control  the  uncon- 
scious automaton  in  man  is  not  likely  to  be  crowned 
with  success.  Fortunately,  however,  the  automaton  in 
us  is  not  left  entirely  between  its  own  selfish  instincts 
and  the  feeble  efforts  of  a  conscious  will.  There  have 
also  been  developed  in  family  life  affections,  and  habits 
of  mercy,  which  are  doubtless  responsible  for  by  far  the 
largest  i)art  of  human  benevolence ;  and  so  we  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  while  our  good  instincts  spring  from 


THE  RESULT  OF  INDIVIDUALISM  201 

the  family,  our  bad  instincts  are  to  great  extent  culti- 
vated by  the  State,  except  at  those  rare  times  when 
great  issues  arouse  in  us  the  for  the  most  part  latent 
sentiments  of  patriotism. 

The  artificial  environment,  then,  which  man  has 
created  for  himself  is  found  to  include  forces  so  oppo- 
site that,  while  the  necessities  of  life  are  training  within 
us  an  automaton  to  act  in  obedience  to  selfishness  and 
furnishing  our  reason  with  motives  of  selfishness,  an 
opposite  non-natural  force  which  we  call  religion  is 
urging  us  to  lives  of  unselfishness,  but  so  inadequately 
that  up  to  the  present  day  this  religion  has  done  the 
work  of  the  devil  almost  as  often  as  that  of  God. 

Moreover,  the  conscious  deliberate  factor  in  us  is  so 
confounded  by  the  opposite  doctrines  taught  by  the  com- 
petitive and  political  system  on  the  one  hand,  and  by 
affection  and  godliness  on  the  other,  that  it  is  able  to 
adopt  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  but,  like  the  infu- 
soria which  we  see  shooting  aimlessly  in  every  direction 
under  our  microscopes,  we  are  driven  alternately  by 
both,  and  are  moving,  therefore,  persistently  in  the 
direction  of  neither. 

Herbert  Spencer  has  pointed  out  that  development  in 
animal  life  is  characterised  by  the  growing  certainty  and 
definiteness  of  animal  movements,  the  erratic  movements 
of  the  infusoria  being  replaced  by  the  definite  persistent 
pursuit  of  the  higher  carnivora.  Now,  if  a  similar 
progress  is  to  take  place  in  the  moral  development  of 
man ;  if  the  incoherency,  uncertainty,  and  indefiniteness 
of  his  movements  in  the  search  for  happiness  are  to  be 
replaced  by  coherency,  certainty,  and  definiteness,  —  it 
must  be  by  a  removal  of  those  causes  which  to-day  occa- 
sion the  one  and  a  substitution  therefor  of  an  environ- 
ment that  will  permit  the  other.  In  other  words,  the 
conflict  between  the  necessities  of  his  physical  being  and 


202  INDIVIDUALISM 

those  of  his  moral  being  must  be  eliminated ;  and  this 
can  only  be  accomplished  by  substituting  for  tlie  com- 
petitive system  which  creates  this  conflict  a  co-operative 
system  that  will  bring  it  to  an  end. 

Is  such  a  co-operative  system  possible  ? 

Among  the  habits  which  have  been  formed  in  man  by 
the  competitive  system  is  one  which  looks  with  iierce 
jealousy  upon  any  infringement  of  what  is  generally 
termed  individual  liberty.  The  isolated  savagery  of  the 
great  carnivora  and  that  of  the  least  civilised  races  of 
men  has  been  already  commented  on.  They  have  slowly 
yielded  to  the  process  of  socialisation,  but  only  with 
great  reluctance,  and  often  under  a  hope,  not  always 
grounded,  that  socialisation  would  result  in  an  enhance- 
ment of  liberty.  And  we  are  to-day  confronted  with 
two  notions  of  liberty  so  inconsistent  that  they  are 
deluding:  the  whole  of  South  Africa  with  blood.  Until 
some  of  the  confusion  attending  the  Boer  and  British 
notions  of  liberty  is  removed,  it  will  be  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  usefully  to  study  the  question  of  how  far  a 
more  perfect  system  of  co-operation  can  be  realised ;  for 
co-operation  involves  the  sacrifice  of  some  freedom,  and 
the  essential  question  arises  how  much  freedom  will 
men  consent  to  sacrifice.  A  careful  study  of  this  sacri- 
fice will  show  that  the  freedom  sacrificed  under  an  intel- 
ligent system  of  co-operation  will  result  in  a  new  order 
of  freedom  as  much  more  precious  than  that  sacrificed  as 
the  substance  of  iEsop's  bone  is  more  precious  than  its 
shadow. 


LIBERTY  203 


CHAPTER  V 

LIBERTY 

The  most  formidable  subjective  obstacle  to  the  adop- 
tion of  a  co-operative  scheme  of  society  is  probably 
to  be  found  in  the  false  notions  which  prevail  on  the 
subject  of  liberty.  Notions  of  liberty  have  arisen  in 
the  same  way  as  notions  of  justice  by  the  fitful  action 
of  the  environment  on  our  conscious  will  and  by  its 
constant  action  upon  our  unconscious  automata,  so 
that  the  few  whose  conscious  wills  are  awake  during  a 
material  part  of  the  day  are  likely  to  have  approximately 
correct  notions  about  liberty,  whereas  those  whose 
lives  are  practically  delivered  over  to  the  unconscious  au- 
tomata within  them  are  likely  to  have  very  incorrect 
notions  about  it.  To  tliese  last,  liberty  generally  means 
the  right  to  do  what  they  want ;  and  as  the  environment 
created  by  commercialism  is  one  of  perpetual  competi- 
tion which  sets  every  man  on  the  task  of  getting  the 
best  of  his  neighbour,  the  right  to  do  what  one  wants 
becomes  reducible  to  the  right  to  benefit  oneself,  even 
though  it  be  at  the  expense  of  one's  neighbour. 

Now,  no  society  could  exist  if  every  individual  in  it 
were  allowed  the  unbridled  right  to  benefit  himself  at 
the  expense  of  others.  The  needs  of  society,  therefore, 
have  curtailed  this  right  so  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  our 
liberties  are  everywhere  circumscribed  by  law ;  and, 
although  most  of  us  are  for  ever  clamouring  for  liberty, 


204  INDIVIDUALISM 

we  are,  nevertheless,  conscious  of  the  necessity  of  law, 
and  the  conflict  between  liberty  and  law,  both  of 
which  we  respectively  approve,  makes  it  no  easy  task 
to  determine  where  liberty  should  end  and  law  begin, 
or,  indeed,  what,  in  view  of  the  necessity  of  law,  liberty 
in  fact  is. 

One  of  the  standard  objections  to  collectivism  is  that 
it  will  interfere  with  liberty.  But  as  to  the  meaning 
of  this  word  "  liberty,"  there  is  probably  no  subject  on 
which  men  are  so  little  agreed.  Those  who  object  to 
collectivism  on  the  ground  that  it  will  interfere  with 
the  liberty  of  individuals  regard  liberty  as  the  opposite 
of  too  much  law  and  of  too  much  government ;  so  that 
according  to  them  the  more  absolute  government  is,  the 
less  liberty  there  is.  This  view,  however,  is  assuredly 
a  mistaken  one.  The  government  of  the  Tartars  in 
Russia  dui'ing  the  fourteenth  century  was  ruthless, 
brutal,  and  absolute ;  and  yet  it  interfered  so  seldom  and 
so  little  with  the  individual  that  the  Russian  people 
were  hardly  aware  of  its  existence.  It  generally  con- 
tented itself  with  receiving  the  tribute  of  the  Russian 
princes  ;  and  as  long  as  the  tribute  was  paid,  the  Russian 
people  had  little  to  fear  from  the  great  Khan.  Sir  J. 
R.  Seeley  points  out  that  there  was  during  this  period  of 
Tartar  despotism  at  tlie  same  time  the  greatest  degree 
of  cruelty  and  the  greatest  degree  of  liberty.  He  also 
points  out  that  the  same  state  of  facts  can  be  noticed  to 
a  less  degree  in  the  present  Turkish  Empire.  On  the 
oth(jr  liand,  the  government  may  be  mild  in  the  extreme, 
and  yet  liberty  be  violated  at  every  hour  of  the  day,  as 
in  the  Jesuit  government  of  Paraguay,  of  wliich  it  is 
said  that  "  all  tlie  most  private  acts  that  man  can  do, 
the  acts  with  which  among  us  no  one  would  allow  the 
least  interference,  were  performed  in  Paraguay  accord- 
ing to  a  fixed  rule  and  at  the  ringing  of  a  bell."     He 


LIBERTY  205 

also  points  out  that,  according  to  Shelley,  "  a  man  who 
is  starving  is  not  free." 

"  Nay,  in  countries  that  are  free, 
Such  starvation  cannot  be 
As  in  England  now  we  see." 

So,  adds  Sir  J.  R.  Seeley,  "  liberty  is  actually  discovered 
to  be  something  to  eat." 

But  in  describing  the  status  of  a  slave  he  regards  it 
as  one  "  under  an  unlimited  government."  Surely  in 
this  respect  he  is  mistaken.  A  slave  may  be  such 
through  the  fact  that  neither  he  nor  his  master  are  sub- 
ject to  any  government  at  all ;  in  other  words,  in  a 
perfectly  savage  state,  the  stronger  man  enslaves  the 
weaker  man,  and  the  question  of  liberty  therefore  is  a 
mere  question  of  physical  strength.  In  the  so-called 
state  of  natiu'e  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  particular 
kind  of  freedom  that  we  enjoy  under  a  civilised  form 
of  government.  In  the  state  of  nature  the  individual 
is  free  only  so  long  as  he  is  strong  enough  to  remain 
free ;  and  he  has  as  many  slaves  as  he  is  strong  enough 
to  enslave.  v^ 

Here  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  fundamental  errors  that 
underlies  our  general  notions  of  liberty.  We  conceive 
that  liberty  is  greatest  in  the  savage  state  and  least  in 
the  civilised  state ;  whereas  as  a  matter  of  fact  liberty 
is  generally  least  in  a  savage  state  and  most  in  one 
of  civilisation,  for  the  foundation  of  liberty  is  law. 
Legum  omnes  servi  sumus,  ut  liberi  esse  possumus.^ 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  a  kind  of  civilisa- 
tion that  does  seriously  diminish  the  liberty  of  the  in- 
dividual, as,  for  example,  that  of  Paraguay ;  but  the 
important  thing  to  keep  in  mind  is  that  the  extent  of 
liberty  which  the  individuals  of  a  community  enjoy  is 

1  Cicero  pro  Cluentio,  53. 


206  INDIVIDUALISM 

due  mainly  to  tlie  wisdom  of  its  institutions  ;  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  extent  to  which  intelligence  and  morality 
prevail  therein.  For  example,  history  shows  that  man 
has  until  very  lately  helplessly  staggered  from  one  kind 
of  tyranny  to  another;  the  tyranny  exercised  by  the 
soldier  under  the  Roman  Empire  yielded  to  the  tyranny  of 
the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  while  the  Church 
was  contesting  the  right  to  misgovern  with  the  king 
and  the  nobles,  the  tyranny  of  these  three  became  in 
part  replaced  by  the  tyranny  of  the  corporation  or  guild  ; 
and  in  the  reaction  from  the  tyranny  of  the  corporation 
and  the  guild  the  workingraan  found  himself  exposed 
to  the  tyranny  of  the  Market;  and  in  endeavouring  to 
liberate  himself  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  he  is 
now  subjecting  himself  to  the  tyranny  of  the  trade  union. 
A  very  little  consideration  of  these  facts  will  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  government  has  been  modified 
mainly  through  the  efforts  of  different  groups  of  a  com- 
munity to  get  into  a  position  where  they  could  tyrannise 
respectively  over  the  rest ;  with  a  general  tendency, 
however,  in  the  direction  of  substituting  for  a  compul- 
sory tyranny  one  which  is  more  or  less  willingly  con- 
sented to.  So,  while  there  is  little  or  no  element  of 
consent  in  the  subjection  of  the  weak  man  to  the  strong 
in  the  state  of  nature  or  under  a  military  form  of 
despotism,  there  is  an  element  of  consent  and  approval 
on  tlie  part  of  the  governed  to  the  governing  class  in 
the  religious  form  of  despotism.  This  element  of  con- 
sent and  approval  is  still  more  developed  in  the  corpora- 
tion or  guild,  and  again  still  more  in  the  trade  union. 
The  direction,  therefore,  towards  which  men  have  tended 
lias  been  to  substitute  for  a  tyranny  to  which  they  do 
not  willingly  consent,  and  over  which  they  have  no  con- 
trol, one  to  which  they  do  more  or  less  willingly  consent, 
and  one  over  which  they  have  some  control. 


LIBERTY  207 

The  amount  of  liberty  which  an  individual  enjoys 
does  not  always  depend  upon  the  form  of  government; 
under  no  orovernment  was  the  libertv  of  the  individual 
less  a  matter  of  public  concern  than  under  that  of  the 
Venetian  Republic ;  and  the  Kaffir  servant  in  the 
South  African  Republic  to-day  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
altogether  free. 

Again,  social  and  industrial  conditions  may  create  a 
kind  of  slavery  under  the  most  popular  form  of  govern- 
ment. Thus  the  social  institution  of  marriage  condemns 
every  woman  who  has  once  become  declassee  to  a  life  of 
disgrace,  and  excludes  her  from  all  so-called  respectable 
means  of  living ;  and  the  trade  union  in  some  districts 
imposes  rules  upon  the  workingman  which  he  is  power- 
less to  resist.  We  must  not  then  allow  ourselves  to  be 
misled  by  mere  form.  True  liberty  is  the  most  precious 
of  the  rights  claimed  by  man ;  and  in  discussing  what 
it  is  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  a  form 
of  government  which  keeps  the  word  of  promise  to  the 
ear  and  breaks  it  to  the  heart.  A  shirt-maker  who  can- 
not earn  more  than  forty-eight  cents  a  dozen  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  or  a  coal-miner  who  cannot  work  for 
more  or  less  than  the  wage  determined  by  a  trade 
union  to  which  he  does  not  belong  in  Wales,  may  have 
less  real  liberty  than  a  eunuch  in  the  palace  of  the 
Shah. 

A  man  who  in  England  or  the  United  States  is  will- 
ing to  work  and  cannot  get  employment,  or  a  woman 
who  has  been  betrayed  and  is  refused  work  in  conse- 
quence, is  outraged  because  civilisation  seems  to  offer 
them  less  rights  than  a  state  of  nature.  They  are  sur- 
rounded by  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  food,  and  yet  they 
may  not  take  and  eat;  there  is  plenty  of  work  to  be 
done,  and  yet  they  may  not  do  it.  This  condition  of 
things   they  regard  as  wrong,  and   they  describe  their 


208  INDIVIDUALISM 

wrongs  by  saying  that  civilisation  produces  not  free- 
dom but  slavery. 

An  American  who  in  France  is  arrested  and  confined 
at  the  discretion  of  a  juge  d' instruction  without  the 
privilege  of  having  the  reason  of  his  confinement 
tested  in  court  by  Habeas  Corpus  considers  his  right 
to  liberty  improperly  abridged. 

A  Turk,  already  the  husband  of  many  wives,  who  de- 
sires in  England  to  add  an  English  girl  to  his  seraglio, 
complains  when  told  that  the  laws  of  England  do  not 
allow  it.  His  liberty,  too,  he  regards  as  abridged.  And 
the  Shah,  it  is  said,  was  indignant  because  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  man  condemned  to  death,  the  laws  of  England 
forbade  a  subject  being  produced  upon  whom  to  exhibit 
to  him  the  modus  operandi  of  the  gallows. 

The  divergent  views  entertained  in  different  parts 
of  the  world  upon  liberty,  justice,  and  morality  at  large 
have  given  rise  to  the  theory  that  they  are  questions  of 
geography.  This  theory,  however,  is  believed  to  be  a 
profoundly  mistaken  one.  Subjective  notions  about 
liberty  may  be  matters  of  geography;  but  the  thing 
liberty,  of  which  every  man  has  a  more  or  less  diver- 
gent idea,  none  the  less  exists  outside  of  the  notions 
entertained  regarding  it. 

When  an  English  gentleman  says  there  is  more  free- 
dom in  England  than  in  any  country  in  the  world,  he 
means  not  necessarily  that  men  are  more  free  in  Eng- 
land than  elsewhere,  but  that  it  is  in  England  that  he 
himself  finds  least  restraint  on  his  actions.  He  is  not 
free  to  murder  in  England,  or  steal  there,  but  this  does 
not  interfere  with  his  freedom,  because  he  has  no  desire 
to  murder  or  steal.  As  to  all  the  details  of  life  which 
he  regards  as  important,  —  trivial  though  they  some- 
times are,  —  he  is  free,  and  he  is  secure.  He  is  not 
obliged  to  announce  his  arrival  in  a  town  to  the  police, 


LIBERTY  209 

or  to  show  his  passport  on  the  frontier.  He  is  not 
exposed  to  arbitrary  arrest,  as  in  France,  or  to  police 
interference,  as  in  Germany.  He  is  not  even  obliged  to 
take  a  check  for  his  luggage  when  he  travels,  as  in 
America.  If  he  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  sufficient 
income,  he  is  practically  free  to  do  what  he  wants  to  do, 
and  this  is  what  he  calls  being  free. 

The  imemployed  British  workingman,  however,  does 
not  enjoy  the  same  freedom ;  with  perhaps  more  faculty 
for  work  he  is  obliged  to  accept  the  slavery  of  a  work- 
house or  starve.  A  similar  servitude  is  forced  upon 
the  South  Wales  coal-miner;  for  he  must  either  work 
subject  to  the  conditions  imposed  by  a  trade  union  to 
which  perhaps  he  does  not  belong,  or  not  work  at  all. 
Under  these  conditions  the  attitude  of  the  British  gen- 
tleman towards  the  liberty  enjoyed  in  England  is  likely 
to  be  different  from  that  of  the  unemployed. 

Surely,  however,  there  is  some  measure  of  liberty  less 
uncertain  than  the  conflicting  views  regarding  it  enter- 
tained in  the  same  country  by  these  two  men. 

Perhaps  nothing  will  help  us  better  to  get  a  clear 
view  of  just  what  liberty  is  and  what  it  is  not,  and 
particularly  just  what  relation  it  bears  to  the  govern- 
ment on  the  one  hand  and  to  social  conditions  on  the 
other,  than  by  reviewing  briefly  during  the  last  hun- 
dred years  the  history  of  one  of  the  most  precious  of 
our  liberties,  —  liberty  of  contract. 

§  1.  Liberty  of  Contract 

In  the  disorders  which  attended  the  breaking  up  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  government,  in  so  far  as  it  pro- 
tected property,  may  almost  be  said  to  have  ceased  to 
exist.  Those  who  commanded  the  armed  forces  of 
Europe  were  robbers  on  a  large  or  small  scale  accord- 

14 


210  INDIVIDUALISM 

ing  to  the  scope  of  their  power  and  the  success  which 
attended  their  depredations.  In  this  respect  there  was 
little  to  choose  between  a  Chilperic  and  a  Robin  Hood. 
As  a  defence  against  this  predatory  system,  industri- 
ous citizens  organised  themselves  all  over  Eui'ope  into 
voluntary  societies  which  took  the  name  of  guilds  or 
corporations ;  the  purposes  for  which  these  were  or- 
ganised varied;  they  began  by  organising  for  the  pur- 
pose of  mutual  protection  against  pillage,  and  they 
ended  by  organising  for  mutual  protection  against  the 
tendency  of  competition  to  reduce  prices  and  wages. 

But  the  inevitable  tendency  of  government  to  be- 
come oppressive  made  itself  felt  in  these  voluntary 
associations,  as  it  had  before  made  itself  felt  under 
established  forms.  And  the  Corporation  became  as 
tyrannical  as  ever  had  been  the  King,  the  Noble,  or  the 
Church.  The  French  Revolution  was  aimed  as  much 
at  the  Corporation  as  at  the  Crown.  The  economic 
expression  of  this  Revolution  is  to  be  found  in  the 
doctrine  of  laissez  /aire.  At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century  both  England  and  France  were  dominated  by 
it :  one  of  its  most  seductive  formulae  was  Liberty  of 
Contract ;  everybody  was  to  be  left  perfectly  free  to 
make  such  contracts  as  he  could  ;  liberty  was  the  order 
of  the  day,  —  liberty  for  the  employer  ;  liberty  for  the 
employee ;  liberty  for  the  landlord ;  liberty  for  the 
tenant.     What  has  become  of  that  liberty  to-day? 

Liberty  for  the  employer  meant  the  destruction  of  the 
guild,  and,  with  the  guild,  of  all  the  safeguards  which 
guilds  liad  put  round  the  isolated  workingman  so  that 
he  should  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  employer.  And 
how  did  the  emj)loyer  use  his  liberty  ?  He  forthwith, 
by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  Nature  which  furnishes 
more  beings  than  she  can  nourish,  in  order  out  of  the 
supertluity   to  select   those   most   lit,  profited   by  free 


LIBERTY  211 

competition  between  workingmen  to  reduce  them  to 
starvation  wages.  The  workingmen  were  driven,  by 
the  ruthlessness  with  which  the  employer  pushed  his 
advantage,  to  combine  in  order  to  secure  by  combina- 
tion terms  which  when  isolated  they  were  unable  to 
secure.  It  would  seem  as  though  liberty  of  contract 
between  employer  and  employee  included  liberty  for 
the  employee  as  well  as  for  the  employer ;  and  that  if 
employers  had  the  right  to  combine  with  employers  to 
keep  down  wages,  employees  had  the  right  to  combine 
with  employees  to  keep  them  up.  But  a  Parliament 
composed  of  employers  thought  otherwise,  and  enacted 
a  law  in  1799  forbidding  combinations  between  work- 
ingmen, though  it  left  the  employers'  right  to  combine 
intact.  By  this  Act  of  1799  they  cut  away  the  logical 
ground  for  their  own  doctrine  of  laissez  /aire.  After  a 
struggle  of  over  twenty  years,  during  which  the  trade 
unions  learned  their  first  lesson  in  Parliamentary  tac- 
tics, they  secured  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  1799.  They 
did  more,  without  being  incorporated  themselves,  they 
secured  the  right  to  sue  in  certain  cases ;  so  that 
though  they  could  use  the  courts  for  the  purpose  of 
attacking  others,  they  could  not  themselves  be  attacked 
there ;  they  share  with  the  State  the  sovereignty  that 
can  use  the  courts  to  discipline  others,  but  are  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  court  itself.  A  trade  union  can  fine 
a  member,  deprive  him  of  his  share  in  the  benefit  fund 
to  which  he  has  for  years  subscribed,  expel  him,  outlaw 
him  so  that  he  cannot  get  occupation  in  the  trade  again, 
and  yet  the  trade  union  is,  so  far  as  the  law  courts 
are  concerned,  absolutely  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
outraged  member. 

But  not  only  is  a  trade  union  an  irresponsible  mas- 
ter over  its  own  members  ;  it  is  often,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  an  equally  irresponsible  master  over  all  workmen 


212  INDIVIDUALISM 

engaged  in  the  trade,  whether  they  are  members  of 
the  trade  union  or  not. 

In  the  first  place,  in  many  trades,  every  person  en- 
gaged in  the  trade  has  to  be  a  member  of  the  trade 
union,  however  unwillingly ;  as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb 
say,  —  themselves  apostles  of  trades  unions,  and  there- 
fore anxious  to  avoid  exaggerating  defects,  —  "  The 
plater  and  riveter  who,  because  he  is  outside  the  United 
Society  of  Boiler-Makers,  is  politely  refused  work  by 
every  shipbuilder  on  the  northeast  coast,  is  just  as  much 
compelled  to  join  the  Union  as  if  membership  were  by  a 
new  Factory  Act  made  a  legal  condition  of  employment." 
Tliis  is  brought  about  by  the  policy  of  refusing  to  work 
in  establishments  where  non-unionists  are  employed,  and 
is  as  effectual  in  compelling  membership  in  the  liighly 
organised  trade  unions  of  the  Northumberland  coal- 
miners  and  the  Lancashire  cotton-spinners  as  in  that 
of  the  boiler-makers  just  referred  to. 

But  not  only  do  the  trade  unions  in  many  districts 
practically  compel  even  the  unwilling  to  become  mem- 
bers, but  in  certain  other  districts  they  control  the  ac- 
tions even  of  those  who  refuse  to  join ;  for  example, 
although  not  one-third  of  the  120,000  men  engaged  in 
coal-mining  in  South  Wales  are  members  of  any  trade 
union,  or  in  any  way  represented  in  trade-union  nego- 
tiations, and  although  of  the  recognised  workers  a  large 
portion  forming  three  separate  unions  expressly  refused 
to  agree  to  the  sliding  scale  of  1893,  and  withdrew  their 
representatives  from  the  committee  engaged  in  negotiat- 
ing the  same,  the  whole  of  the  120,000  men  with  infini- 
tesimal exceptions  are  compelled  to  accept  the  sliding 
scale  notwithstanding  their  protests  against  it,  and  not 
only  are  they  compelled  to  accept  the  rate  of  wages  de- 
termined by  the  trade  unions,  but  a  sum  of  sixpence 
per  annum  is  deducted  from  the  earnings  of  about  40,000 


LIBERTY  213 

men  to  meet  the  expenses  connected  with  the  agreement. 
In  the  Rhonclda  Valley  and  in  a  few  other  districts  the 
compulsion  goes  still  further:  the  employers  deduct  a 
few  pence  per  month  from  their  workmen's  earnings  as 
contributions  to  the  trade  union,  whether  the  workmen 
are  members  of  the  trade  union  or  not;  and  some 
trade  unions  are  thus  supported  by  deductions  made 
from  the  wages  of  workmen  who  are  not  members  of 
them ;  indeed,  the  largest  and  most  important  in  South 
Wales  has  no  other  means  of  support  than  this  compul- 
sory deduction  made  in  the  employer's  pay  office,  and 
is  without  any  lodges,  branch  officials,  or  other  organised 
machinery. 

As  a  necessary  result  of  this  system  practically  two- 
thirds  of  the  miners  in  the  South  Wales  coal  field  — 
that  is  to  say,  80,000  out  of  120,000  —  are  taxed  for  the 
support  of  the  trade  union  which  imposes  conditions 
of  employment  upon  them  without  giving  them  any  op- 
portunity of  expressing  their  desires  or  of  taking  any 
part  in  the  negotiation ;  in  other  words,  here  we  have  a 
case  of  taxation  without  representation  aggravated  by 
the  fact  that  80,000  men  are  dictated  to  by  a  minority  of 
40,000  as  to  what  is  generally  supposed  to  be  the  most 
intimate  right  of  man;  that  is  to  say,  the  wages  for 
which  he  will  work. 

A  similar  case  may  be  cited  in  Dublin  where  the 
coopers  are  so  admirably  organised  that  they  allow  no 
one  to  work  at  their  trade  except  when  brisk  business 
occasions  more  work  than  they  can  do ;  and  they  then 
draw  workmen  from  other  towns,  but  do  not  admit  them 
to  membership.  Nevertheless,  they  compel  the  strangers 
to  contribute  weekly,  so  long  as  they  work  in  Dublin,  to 
the  Dublin  union,  and  when  work  gets  slack  issue 
orders  that  they  leave  the  town;  and  leave  the  town 
they  must,  or  starve. 


214  INDIVIDUALISM 

As  is  said  in  the  "  Federalist,"  "  Power  over  a  man's 
subsistence  amounts  to  power  over  his  will."  There  can 
be  no  more  complete  destruction  of  freedom  of  contract 
or  so-called  liberty  than  in  the  cases  just  described. 

The  more  closely  we  study  the  operation  of  so-called 
freedom  of  contract,  the  more  inevitably  we  are  driven 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  lead,  under  the  competitive 
system,  to  industrial  slavery.  We  have  seen  in  the  above 
cases  that  it  does  lead  to  industrial  slavery ;  indeed,  we 
are  driven  to  the  conclusion  tliat  it  must  always  do  so. 
The  more  complete  the  freedom,  the  more  inevitable  is 
this  result ;  because,  the  more  free  an  employer  is  in  the 
contracts  he  makes  with  his  workmen,  the  greater  the 
necessity  he  is  put  by  the  pressure  of  competition  to 
lower  the  workmen's  wages,  and  the  more  inevitably  are 
workmen  driven  by  combination  to  resist  the  deduction 
of  wages.  This  can  only  be  done  effectually  on  a  scale 
commensurate  with  the  trade,  because  the  workman  is 
not  fighting  his  particular  employer  so  much  as  he  is  all 
the  employers  who  are  in  the  field  of  competition,  and 
are  compelling  by  their  competition  a  reduction  of  wages 
in  one  district  to  a  corresponding  level  to  that  which 
rules  in  another.  In  other  words,  the  competitive  system, 
when  allowed  full  liberty  of  action  under  the  principle 
of  freedom  of  contract,  not  only  leads  to  industrial 
slavery,  but  must  do  so.  There  is  no  alternative ;  if  in 
certain  trades  and  in  certain  favoured  districts  this  in- 
dustrial slavery  is  not  at  present  operating,  it  is  because 
special  circumstances  favour  that  particular  district ; 
but  competition  will  eventually  reach  the  district  and 
apply  thereto  the  fatal  law. 

And  this  law  does  not  apply  to  workmen  alone :  it 
applies  equally  to  employers ;  for  combination  among 
workmen  inevitably  leads  to  combination  among  em- 
ployers ;  and  employers  therefore  find  themselves  soon 


LIBERTY  215 

brought  to  the  same  condition  of  subservience  as  the 
workmen.  Far  from  running  their  own  business  in 
their  own  way,  as  was  boldly  asserted  to  be  the  right  of 
every  employer  under  the  system  of  laissez  /aire,  em- 
ployers find  themselves  driven  to  accept  the  rate  of 
wages  fixed  by  arrangements  between  trade  unions  and 
employers,  whether  they  have  formed  part  of  the  employ- 
ers' combination  or  not ;  and  the  inevitable  effect  of  this 
system  is  to  crush  the  small  employers,  leaving  only  the 
large.  In  1891,  for  instance,  the  small  boot-manufac- 
turers protested  against  "  the  capitalist  manufacturers' 
conspiracy "  by  fixing  uniform  standards  of  wages,  to 
crush  out  their  smaller  competitors.  It  is  interesting 
to  read  the  comments  of  the  labour  press  on  this  outcry 
of  the  small  manufacturers.  It  is  characterised  as  a 
"ridiculous  superstition,  too  obviously  absurd  to  admit 
a  moment's  thought ; "  "if  smaller  manufacturers  can- 
not continue  to  exist  except  by  paying  less  than  a  proper 
standard  of  wages  for  work  done,  this  is  the  clearest 
proof  that  they  have  no  right  to  exist  as  such."  ^  It  is 
very  much  like  what  we  are  accustomed  to  hear  the 
employers  say  regarding  the  workingmen.  The  fact  is, 
both  are  perpetually  crying  out  for  liberty  of  contract, 
and  both  perpetually  combining  to  make  liberty  of 
contract  impossible. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Not  only  does  workman  combine 
with  workman  to  keep  wages  up,  and  employer  with 
employer  to  keep  wages  down,  but  at  last  the  two  com- 
binations effect  what  are  called  in  the  trade  "  alliances  " 
for  the  purpose  of  putting  a  stop  to  freedom  of  contract 
altogether ;  that  is  to  say,  the  combination  of  workmen 
and  the  combination  of  employers  together  form  a  third 
combination,  both  agreeing   that   the   employers   shall 

1  Editorial  in  "Shoe  and  Leather  Eecord,"  vol.  x.  page  254,  April  10, 
1891. 


216  INDIVIDUALISM 

employ  no  workman,  and  the  workman  shall  work  for 
no  employer,  who  does  not  comply  with  the  alliance 
agreement.  So  at  last  we  arrive  at  the  consummate 
paradox  that  not  only  does  freedom  of  contract  put  an 
end  to  freedom  of  contract,  but  competition  puts  an  end 
to  competition.  The  final  result  of  trade  alliances  is 
that  no  person  is  allowed  to  engage  in  the  trade,  whether 
as  employer  or  as  workman,  unless  he  complies  with 
the  rule  determined  by  the  alliance ;  in  other  words, 
we  find  in  full-fledged  operation  at  the  present  time  the 
same  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the  mediaeval  guild ; 
and  it  was  in  great  part  to  break  down  this  tyranny  of 
the  guild  that  the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire  was  invented.^ 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  competitive  system 
admits  of  little  progress.  Competition  created  the 
mediaeval  guild ;  when  the  tyranny  of  the  guild  be- 
came intolerable,  it  was  broken  up  by  the  principle  of 
freedom  of  contract;  and  the  operation  of  freedom  of 
contract  under  the  competitive  system  has  only  brought 
us  back,  after  a  century  of  so-called  progress,  to  the 
point  from  which  we  started,  —  the  tyranny  of  the  guild 
again. 

There  is  but  one  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  this 
story  :  competition  is  inconsistent  with  complete  liberty 
of  contract ;  and  complete  liberty  of  contract  is  probably 
not  attainable  in  this  world  at  all. 

CoUectivists  offer  as  a  solution  for  this  discouraging 
conclusion  a  system  of  government  under  which  com- 

1  A  good  illustration  of  this  so-called  alliance  is  to  be  found  in  those 
concluded  since  1890  between  the  Employers'  Association  and  the  Trade 
Union  of  Birmingham.  (See  the  New  Trades  Combination  Movement,  Its 
Purposes  and  Methods,  by  E.  J.  Smith,  Birmingham,  1898,  and  an  article 
in  the  Birmingham  "District  Journal"  for  April,  1896,  by  W.  J.  Davis, 
Secretary  of  the  National  Society  of  Amalgamated  Brassworkers.  See  also 
Birmingham  "Daily  Post,"  1895  and  1896.) 


LIBERTY  217 

petition  could  be  to  the  greatest  degree  possible  elimi- 
nated through  the  abolition  of  private  property  in  those 
things  the  ownership  of  which  enable  one  set  of  men 
to  control  the  lives  of  others.  The  feasibility  of  such 
a  scheme  will  be  discussed  in  another  chapter.  If  col- 
lectivism is  ever  possible,  it  is  assuredly  to-day  still  a  long- 
way  off.  And  what  we  are  in  this  chapter  studying  is 
not  an  ultimate  solution  of  the  problem  of  liberty,  but 
an  answer  to  the  question  what,  under  existing  condi- 
tions, is  this  thing  which  we  call  liberty,  and  for  which 
Redskins  have  fought  and  it  is  alleged  Boer  and  Filipino 
are  still  fighting. 

It  seems  to  follow  from  the  foregoing  history  of 
human  efforts  to  secure  liberty  of  contract  that  under 
existing  conditions  absolute  liberty  of  contract  is  un- 
attainable. With  this  conclusion  fresh  in  our  minds  let 
us  next  study  what  elements  enter  into  this  so-called 
liberty,  in  the  hope  that  when  we  have  reduced  it  to  the 
elements  of  which  it  is  composed  we  may  be  in  a  better 
position  to  decide  just  what  it  is,  how  far  it  may  be  at- 
tained, and  to  what  extent  Boers,  Filipinos,  and  Red- 
skins are  respectively  attaining  it. 

§  2.   Analysis  of  Liberty 

The  state  of  nature  gives  the  individual  the  maxi- 
mum opportunity  of  liberty,  but  exposes  him  to  the 
greatest  risk  of  losing  it.  The  lowest  savages  of  all, 
such  as  the  Wood  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  live  in  the  woods 
much  after  the  fashion  of  the  anthropoid  apes:  they 
have  no  social  institutions,  and  they  know  no  law. 
Every  male  mates  with  the  female  he  can  capture,  and 
lives  with  her  so  long  as  the  caprice  lasts,  or  as  he  is 
not  deprived  of  her  by  a  stronger  male  than  he.  Being 
deprived  of  the  co-operation  of  his  fellow-creatures  ex- 


218  INDIVIDUALISM 

cept  that  of  the  female  he  lives  with,  he  has  to  dispense 
with  all  the  comforts  and  securities  that  result  from 
co-operation. 

His  liberty  is  not  limited  by  law :  it  is,  however, 
much  limited  by  Nature's  predatory  scheme  ;  any  animal 
stronger  than  he  can  deprive  liim  of  it,  and  he  has  only 
his  own  individual  resources  with  which  to  defend  him- 
self against  such  stronger  animals. 

But  Nature  includes  not  only  the  predatory  or  com- 
petitive scheme,  but  also  that  of  co-operation ;  and  while 
it  presents  us  with  the  tiger  as  the  consummate  result 
of  the  one,  it  points  to  the  ant  as  the  product  of  the 
other.  Now  what  Nature  has  done  for  the  ant  in  substi- 
tuting co-operation  for  competition  within  the  commu- 
nity, man  has  to  a  less  degree  done  for  himself  through 
his  social  institutions  and  his  political  schemes  of  gov- 
ernment. 

The  history  of  the  progress  of  man  is  the  history  of 
the  slow  steps  through  which  he  has  abandoned  the 
license  he  enjoys  in  a  state  of  nature  in  order  to  secure 
the  advantages  conferred  by  law. 

The  process  through  which  man  has  slowly  abandoned 
the  license  of  nature  for  the  security  of  law  is  twofold : 
compulsion  and  consent ;  that  is  to  say,  during  some  pe- 
riods of  his  development  man  has  been  civilised  through 
compulsion  by  a  more  or  less  benevolent  despot ;  at 
other  periods  man  has  contributed  to  his  own  develop- 
ment by  himself  organising  institutions  to  that  end. 

The  institutions  which  man  has  devised  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  himself  from  the  risks  which  attend 
the  savage  state  are  manifold ;  sometimes  they  partake 
of  the  nature  of  government,  —  that  is  to  say,  they  are  in- 
stitutions which  can  compel  consent  by  the  authority  of 
some  established  power  in  the  State ;  at  other  times  they 
are  not  governmental  but  voluntary,  as,  for  example,  the 


LIBERTY  219 

Church,  the  Guild,  and  the  Trade  Union.  But  what- 
ever be  the  process,  it  is  characterised  in  every  case  by 
the  abandonment,  whether  voluntary  or  involuntary,  of 
a  part  of  the  license  enjoyed  in  a  state  of  nature  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  the  security  possible  only  under  the 
safeguards  of  law. 

One  of  the  first  steps  taken  by  humanity  was  to 
emerge  from  the  isolated  family  condition  of  the  an- 
thropoid ape  and  the  Wood  Veddah  into  what  is 
generally  described  by  sociologists  as  the  horde  system. 
The  horde  was  probably  made  up  of  individuals,  not  of 
families.  Marriage  under  the  horde  system  was  proba- 
bly not  recognised  as  an  institution.  Under  conditions 
which  made  "  maternity  a  matter  of  fact  and  paternity 
a  matter  of  opinion,"  children  derived  their  names  from 
their  mothers,  not  from  their  fathers.  The  sacrifice  of 
liberty  made  by  the  individual  under  the  horde  system 
was  practically  confined  to  a  recognition  of  the  author- 
ity of  the  chief.  This  is  probably  the  kind  of  civilisa- 
tion that  prevailed  in  Assyria  and  Egypt. 

Another  step  is  to  be  found  in  the  institution  of 
marriage  ;  under  this  institution  the  individual  sacri- 
ficed the  license  he  enjoyed  under  a  natural  state  as 
regards  sexual  relations,  and  under  it  was  founded  the 
patriarchal  system  which  affords  a  striking  contrast  to 
that  of  the  horde.  The  horde  system  tends  to  produce 
a  nation  of  slaves  abjectly  following  the  lead  of  a  mili- 
tary chief ;  the  patriarchal  system  created,  on  the 
contrary,  a  fierce  and  jealous  individualism.  Every 
patriarch  tends  to  become  a  chief  over  his  own  family 
first,  and  over  his  weaker  neiglibours  afterwards.  It  was 
only  with  the  greatest  reluctance  that  the  patriarch 
consented  to  surrender  any  part  of  his  absolute  author- 
ity in  order  to  combine  with  neighbouring  patriarchs  in 
common  defence  against  a  common  invader.     But  the 


220  INDIVIDUALISM 

nations  built  upon  a  patriarchal  plan  which  survived 
were  those  in  which  the  patriarchs  had  sufficient  in- 
telligence and  sufficient  self-control  to  make  the  neces- 
sary  sacrifice.  The  slow  steps  through  which  these 
successive  sacrifices  were  made  can  be  followed  in  the 
early  history  of  Greece  ;  we  see  there  the  great  patriar- 
chal families  gradually  uniting  in  common  defence 
against  a  common  invader  to  form  the  City  States  of 
Athens,  Sparta,  and  Thebes.  We  see  next  the  City 
States  combining  with  one  another,  sometimes  against  a 
Greek,  sometimes  against  a  foreign  foe.  But  in  Greece 
the  fierce  individualism  of  every  city  made  it  impossible 
for  them  to  grasp  the  idea  of  a  great  State  ;  the  cities 
were  unable  to  make  the  necessary  sacrifice,  and  they 
fell,  therefore,  one  by  one,  before  the  genius  of  Philip 
and  Alexander. 

Rome  achieved  by  compulsion  what  Greece  had 
failed  to  accomplish  by  consent.  Roman  arms  com- 
pelled the  surrender  of  conquered  cities ;  and  a  high 
degree  of  political  sagacity  succeeded  in  welding  the 
conquered  cities  into  an  empire.  But  it  is  during  the 
eighteenth  century  that  the  last  great  step  has  been 
made.  What  Grecian  cities  could  not  accomplish  by 
consent,  and  what  Rome  was  unable  permanently  to 
accomplish  by  compulsion  has  been  accomplished  by 
the  Cantons  of  Switzerland  and  the  Colonies  of  the 
United  States.  The  sacrifices  which  every  Colony  had 
to  make  in  order  by  combination  to  secure  the  advan- 
tages of  a  great  nation  are  the  sacrifices  which  the 
Federalists  secured  from  the  United  States,  which  the 
Southerners  threw  into  the  hazard  during  our  civil  war, 
and  the  wisdom  of  which  has  been  justified  by  the 
prosperity  and  comparatively  high  degree  of  civilisation 
which  now  prevails  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
slope. 


LIBERTY  221 

At  every  step  we  see  man  by  intelligence  and  self- 
control  surrendering  a  part  of  the  license  he  enjoyed 
in  a  state  of  nature  in  order  to  secure  the  advantages 
which  through  co-operation  can  only  be  enjoyed  under  a 
government  constituted  by  consent  and  administered 
for  the  benefit  of  all ;  and  these  steps  have  been  con- 
secutively as  follows.  From  a  state  of  isolation  to  that 
of  the  horde  through  recognition  of  the  authority  of  a 
chief ;  from  that  of  the  horde  to  the  city  through  the 
patriarchal  system  involving  surrender  of  license  in 
sexual  relations  ;  from  the  city  to  the  State  through 
surrender  of  some  political  freedom  in  recognition  of 
State  sovereignty ;  and  from  the  State  to  the  United 
States  through  the  surrender  of  State  sovereignty. 
Every  one  of  these  sacrifices  is  represented  in  the 
political  status  of  every  citizen  of  the  United  States : 
he  has  surrendered  the  absolute  freedom  of  the  state  of 
nature  through  the  recognition  of  government  at  large ; 
he  has  surrendered  freedom  as  regards  sexual  relations 
by  his  recognition  of  the  institution  of  marriage  ;  and 
our  existing  government  represents  to  him  three  distinct 
concessions,  —  a  concession  of  political  liberty  through 
recognition  of  the  government  of  the  city  or  town  in 
which  he  lives ;  a  concession  of  political  liberty  through 
the  recognition  of  the  government  of  the  State  in  which 
he  lives  ;  and  a  concession  of  political  liberty  through  the 
recognition  of  the  government  of  the  United  States. 

Now,  what  are  the  advantages  he  has  gained  in  ex- 
change for  these  concessions  respectively?  It  has  been 
pointed  out  that  in  the  savage  state  he  was  exposed  to 
many  risks  ;  these  risks  may  be  divided  into  the  follow- 
ing groups,  —  risks  to  life,  or  death ;  risks  to  personal 
freedom,  or  slavery  and  imprisonment ;  risks  to  limb,  or 
bodily  injury ;  risks  to  property,  or  pauperism. 

It  is  obvious  that  of  these  our  present  system  of  gov- 


222  INDIVIDUALISM 

eminent  practically  secures  us  from  the  first  three 
except  in  the  abnormal  case  of  war ;  that  is  to  say,  that 
risks  of  life,  liberty,  and  limb  are  by  our  governmental 
institutions  reduced  to  a  minimum.  Government,  how- 
ever, has  very  incompletely  secured  us  from  risk  to 
property ;  that  is  to  say,  we  are  most  of  us  exposed  to 
the  danger  of  becoming  paupers. 

The  great  political  struggles  which  we  have  before  us 
are  the  struggles  between  different  fractions  in  our 
community  upon  the  question  of  property.  As  regards 
security  or  risk  to  property,  those  who  are  in  favour  of 
maintaining  existing  conditions  are  generally  termed 
conservatives ;  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  think 
existing  conditions  can  be  improved  are  generally 
termed  liberals ;  and  those  who  demand  a  radical  change 
in  the  system  are  termed  radicals,  socialists,  or  anar- 
chists, according  to  the  extent  to  which  they  desire  to 
see  existing  conditions   subverted. 

We  do  not  propose  to  enter  profoundly  into  the  ques- 
tions which  divide  these  three  groups  in  this  chapter. 
It  suffices  the  purpose  of  our  discussion  here  to  point 
out  that  the  conservatives  proceed  upon  the  theory  that 
the  TToWol  are  not  fit  for  self-government,  and  that  their 
happiness  can  best  be  promoted  through  the  generosity 
of  the  governing  and  wealthy  class ;  the  liberals  are 
willing  to  recognize  in  the  ttoWoI  a  larger  faculty  for 
self-government,  but  cling  to  maintaining  the  effectual 
ascendancy  of  the  wealtliy  class ;  whereas  the  ratlicals, 
socialists,  and  anarchists  repudiate  the  alleged  gener- 
osity of  the  governing,  or  wealthy  class,  with  scorn, 
and  pronounce  the  iroWol  better  fitted  to  govern  than 
they. 

But  apart  from  the  question  which  fraction  of  the 
people  is  best  fitted  to  govern,  there  is  one  of  a  more 
fundamental  character  which  demands  our  very  careful 


LIBERTY  223 

consideration.     We   have  already  referred  to  risks   to 
property.     We  have  now  to  consider  what  property  is. 

§  3.   Pkoperty,  Right,  and  Duty 

Property  is  practically  unknown  in  the  purely  preda- 
tory scheme  of  nature.  We  see  it  arising  in  nature 
when  animals  abandon  the  isolation  created  by  the  preda- 
tory plan  and  adopt  some  form  of  socialisation.  We 
see  it,  for  example,  in  flocks  of  birds  when  they  return 
to  a  nesting-place.  Every  bird  retui-ns  to  her  own 
nest,  and  any  attempt  of  one  bird  to  appropriate  the 
nest  of  another  immediately  brings  upon  her  the  resent- 
ment of  the  whole  flock.  Individual  sparrows  who 
attempt  to  rob  one  nest  of  straw  to  make  their  own  are 
immediately  set  upon  by  the  other  sparrows  in  the  flock. 
But  notions  of  individual  property  in  nature  are  com- 
paratively rare.  It  is  in  such  highly  organised  com- 
munities as  those  of  ants  that  we  find  the  notion  of 
property  most  developed,  but  in  these  communities  the 
idea  of  property  is  collective,  not  individual.  The  most 
amazing  quality  of  the  ant  is  its  notion  of  collective 
property.  If  ants  are  observed  in  the  process  of  tearing 
to  pieces  a  dead  caterpillar,  it  will  be  found  that  they 
do  not  themselves  devour  the  morsels  they  separate,  as 
would  a  pack  of  wolves  in  a  similar  case.  On  the  con- 
trary, every  ant  carries  off  its  morsel  to  the  nest.  Every 
ant's  nest  is  a  storehouse  of  collective  property,  and 
teaches  a  humiliating  lesson  of  social  life  to  man.  If 
we  turn  to  human  institutions,  we  shall  find  that  they 
have  been  organised  more  with  a  view  to  protecting 
private  property  than  public,  and  Herbert  Spencer  has 
propounded  the  doctrine  that  the  less  a  government 
owns  in  the  way  of  property,  the  better. 

It  will  be  useful  in  studying  this  question  to  push 


224  INDIVIDUALISM 

our  analysis  of  liberty  a  step  farther;  let  us  begin  by 
agreeing  upon  terms. 

It  is  clear  that  we  need  three  words,  in  discussing 
this  subject,  to  convey  essentially  different  things:  one 
generic  word  to  convey  the  general  notion  of  ability 
to  do  what  one  wants  ;  one  specific  word  to  convey 
the  notion  of  ability  to  do  what  one  wants  irrespective 
of  consequence  to  others  and  uncontrolled  by  social 
conditions ;  another  specific  word  to  convey  the  notion 
of  ability  to  do  what  one  wants,  due  regard  being  had  to 
the  consequence  to  others,  and  controlled  by  social  con- 
ditions. Although  the  words  "freedom  "  and  "  liberty" 
are  used  interchangeably,  the  latter  is  more  specifically 
used  to  convey  the  idea  of  political  liberty,  or  liberty 
under  the  law.  Let  us  agree  for  the  purpose  of  this 
discussion,  without  attempting  further  to  justify  it,  to 
use  the  word  "  freedom"  in  the  first  sense  required ;  that 
is  to  say,  to  convey  the  general  notion  of  ability  to  do 
what  one  wants.  The  word  "  license  "  conveys  the  idea 
of  freedom  irrespective  of  consequence  to  others  and  un- 
controlled by  social  conditions.  And  the  word  "  liberty" 
will  then  conveniently  be  reduced  to  mean  freedom 
limited  by  regard  for  others  and  controlled  by  social 
conditions  or  law. 

Every  advance  of  civilisation  is  marked  by  a  surren- 
der of  license,  because  the  progress  of  civilisation  is 
away  from  the  condition  of  isolation  which  character- 
ises the  savage  and  predatory  plan  towards  the  system 
of  co-operation  that  characterises  communities  of  citi- 
zens. Co-operation  involves  a  sacrifice.  Now,  every 
sacrifice  of  license  gives  rise  to  two  things  :  a  right  and 
a  duty.  It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  every  step 
from  license  to  liberty  is  made  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  some  advantage.  Now,  the  thing  surrendered 
represents  the  duty,  and  the  advantage  secured  repre- 


LIBERTY  225 

sents  the  right.  A  moment's  consideration  will  serve 
to  illustrate  this. 

A  savage  kills  whom  he  chooses  and  can ;  a  citizen 
surrenders  this  license  to  murder.  Now,  this  surrender 
of  a  part  of  liis  old  license,  converted  into  the  language 
of  morality,  corresponds  to  the  duty  to  respect  life,  and 
the  advantage  secured  by  the  surrender  corresponds  to 
security  or  rigid  to  life. 

Again,  a  savage  satisfies  every  sexual  caprice.  The 
citizen  surrenders  this  license,  and  this  surrender,  trans- 
lated into  the  language  of  morality,  corresponds  to  the 
duty  to  respect  chastity,  and  the  advantage  obtained  by 
this  surrender  consists  in  security  from  assault  and 
recognition  of  connubial  rights. 

Again,  the  savage  takes  what  he  chooses  and  keeps  it 
as  long  as  he  chooses  or  can.  A  citizen  takes  and 
keeps  only  what  the  law  allows.  The  surrender  made 
by  the  citizen,  translated  into  the  language  of  morality, 
corresponds  to  the  duty  to  respect  property.  The  ad- 
vantage he  secures  consists  in  security  to  and  right  in 
property.  It  is  by  a  series,  then,  of  surrenders  that  we 
secure  rights  and  assume  duties. 

No  one  any  longer  doubts  the  wisdom  and  advantage 
to  a  community  of  the  rights  secured  by  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  license  enjoyed  in  a  savage  state  to  kill, 
maim,  and  rob ;  but  the  right  to  property  differs  from 
the  right  to  life  and  limb  in  a  peculiar  and  important 
respect.  For  while  the  right  to  life  and  limb  is  a  right 
which  confers  an  unmixed  good  upon  a  community, 
the  right  to  property  has  conferred  upon  those  who  have 
the  faculty  of  accumulating  it,  or  who  by  the  law  of  in- 
heritance are  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  property 
they  have  not  accumulated,  opportunities  for  oppression. 
Now,  when  property  is  used  by  one  set  of  men  to  oppress 
another  it  gives  rise  to  conflict,  and  it  may  be  said  with- 

15 


226  INDIVIDUALISM 

out  much  exaggeration  that  most  of  the  political  prob- 
lems of  the  present  day  arise  out  of  this  conflict.  To 
the  student  the  problem  presents  itself  in  this  form : 
how  can  the  advantages  of  property  be  preserved  and 
the  facilities  for  oppression  be  obviated? 

The  recognition  of  right  to  property  has  played  an 
essential  role  in  the  progress  of  civilisation.  Civilisa- 
tion cannot  advance  save  on  the  condition  of  securing  a 
sufficient  supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life  or  wealth ;  and 
wealth  cannot  be  accumulated  unless  right  to  property 
be  recognised.  Indeed,  the  social  state  is  differentiated 
from  the  state  of  isolated  savagery  by  the  notion  of 
propert}^ ;  the  notion  of  a  man's  property  in  his  wife  is 
at  the  basis  of  the  domestic  state ;  the  notion  of  a  man's 
property  in  his  flock  is  at  the  basis  of  the  pastoral  state ; 
the  notion  of  a  man's  property  in  the  land  occupied  by 
him  is  at  the  basis  of  the  agricultural  State.  And 
although  property  has  built  up  an  aristocracy  which  up 
to  this  centiuy  has  always  been  found  in  control  of  the 
agricultural  State,  property  in  its  commercial  and  indus- 
trial development  has  broken  up  the  power  of  the 
landed  aristocracy,  as,  for  example,  that  of  the  patrician 
in  Rome  and  that  of  the  feudal  baron  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  French  Revolution  was  a  revolt  of  the 
wealthy  bourgeoisie  against  the  noble  and  the  throne ; 
and  French  collectivists  are  to-day  prophesying  a  new 
revolution  of  the  workingman  against  the  bourgeoisie. 

How  far  this  heralded  revolt  can  be  made  consistent 
with  a  high  degree  of  socialisation  is  not  yet  clear.  It 
does  seem  clear,  however,  that  in  so  far  as  private  prop- 
erty can  be  used  by  a  few  to  pauperise  the  many,  the 
problem  of  property  has  not  yet  been  solved  consistently 
with  a  high  standard  of  justice. 

Let  us,  then,  agree  to  define  property  as  the  right  of 
the  individual  to  the  exclusive  possession,  enjoyment, 


LIBERTY  227 

and  disposition  of  things,  subject  to  limitations  deter- 
mined in  every  nation  by  its  own  laws,  —  no  system  of 
laws  regarding  property  having  yet  been  devised  that  is 
consistent  with  a  high  standard  of  justice. 

Bearing  this  definition  in  mind,  liberty  may  roughly 
be  divided  into  three  kinds,  —  personal  liberty,  which  is 
better  understood  to  mean  liberty  from  personal  re- 
straint or  imprisonment ;  political  liberty,  which  can  be 
defined  as  the  right  by  such  peaceful  methods  as  the 
ballot  to  determine  the  character  of  our  political  institu- 
tions, the  power  to  direct  legislation,  and  to  determine 
to  whom  the  administration  of  our  laws  shall  be  con- 
fided ;  and  (the  third  and  last  great  division  of  liberty) 
economic  liberty.  It  is  around  and  about  economic 
liberty  that  most  of  the  battles  of  the  present  day  are 
wasred. 


"^o^ 


§  4.   EcoNoivnc  Liberty 

The  great  problem  of  economic  liberty  arises  out  of 
the  conflict  between  the  individualistic  idea  of  civilisa- 
tion and  the  socialistic  idea  of  it.  Extreme  individualism 
is  marked  by  ferocity  and  selfishness,  and  is  illustrated 
by  the  lion,  the  tiger,  and  man  in  the  savage  state. 
Extreme  socialism  is  marked  by  habits  of  altruism 
and  affection,  as  illustrated  by  the  bee,  the  ant,  and 
man  in  the  ideal  Christian  State  ;  and  here  it  must  be 
observed  that  man  has  practically  never  reached  the 
high  condition  of  socialism  observed  in  bees  and  ants ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  stands  midway  between  the  extremes 
of  individualism  on  the  one  hand  and  the  extremes  of 
socialism  on  the  other. 

It  should  be  further  observed  that  extreme  individ- 
ualism knows  no  law,  no  right,  no  duty;  whereas 
socialism  is  the  embodiment  of  law,  of  right,  and  of 
duty. 


228  INDIVIDUALISM 

There  are  some  standard  objections  to  socialism  which 
are  singularly  unsound.  One  is  that  individualism 
creates  character.  If  by  character  is  understood  fero- 
city and  selfishness,  the  proposition  will  not  for  a 
moment  be  disputed.  But  if  by  character  is  meant 
capacity  for  self-sacrifice  and  self-control,  it  ought  not 
to  be  difficult  to  demonstrate  that  these  qualities  are 
hardly  elicited  by  the  individualistic  condition  at  all, 
whereas  they  are  necessary  to  a  high  degree  of  socialism 
and  are  promoted  by  it. 

There  is  another  argument  of  the  individualist  which 
seems  equally  unsound.  It  is  the  argument  built  upon 
a  false  use  of  the  word  "liberty ;  "  for  if  we  test  individ- 
ualistic ideals  of  liberty  by  their  fruits,  we  shall  find 
that  they  generally  mean  full  play  to  selfishness  for  one- 
self, but  full  security  from  the  selfishness  of  others. 
This  is  the  ideal  of  liberty  expressed  by  an  oppressing 
employer  when  he  demands  the  right  to  manage  his  own 
business  as  he  chooses,  or  the  right  to  do  what  he  wishes 
with  his  own.  It  is  against  this  false  notion  of  liberty 
that  we  have  particularly  to  guard. 

There  is,  however,  another  argument  of  the  individ- 
ualist which  puts  him  upon  stronger  ground.  Tliis 
argument  is  built  upon  the  unfitness  of  humanity  to-day 
for  the  socialistic  State.  Undoubtedly  socialism  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  word — that  is  to  say,  the  entire  abolition 
of  private  property  in  the  sources  of  production  and  the 
sole  property  of  the  sources  of  production  in  the  State  — 
involves  a  degree  of  altruism,  self-sacrifice,  and  self- 
control  which  cannot  be  said  to  exist  in  our  community 
to-day.  The  result  of  attempting  to  impose  such  a 
government  upon  any  of  our  existing  communities 
would  j>robably  be  to  create  such  dissatisfaction  that 
government  would  become  impossible.  Solon,  in  pro- 
posing his  Constitution  for  Athens,  professed  the  desire 


LIBERTY  229 

to  give  Athens,  not  the  best  government  possible,  but  the 
best  government  that  Athenians  could  endure.  It  is 
the  application  of  this  wise  principle  which  makes  un- 
wise the  idea  of  suddenly  imposing  socialistic  forms 
of  government  upon  a  community  little  fitted  for  it. 
While,  therefore,  the  individualist  is  clamouring  for  an 
ideal  of  liberty  which,  giving  full  play  to  the  selfishness 
of  the  few,  allows  the  few  to  oppress  the  many,  the 
socialist  is  demanding  institutions  which,  because  they 
are  compatible  only  with  self-sacrifice  and  self-control, 
would,  in  a  community  in  which  neither  is  developed  to 
a  sufficient  degree,  probably  lead  through  a  period  of 
factious  discontent  to  anarchy.  The  practical  states- 
man has  to  determine,  not  the  degree  of  liberty  a  man 
ought  in  the  end  to  enjoy  or  ought  in  the  end  to  sacri- 
fice, but  rather  the  degree  of  liberty  which  present  con- 
ditions can  afford  to  allow  in  recognition  of  individual- 
ism on  the  one  hand,  or  to  curtail  in  the  interests  of 
socialism  on  the  other. 

The  political  problem  that  every  community  is  to-day 
more  or  less  unconsciously  solving  for  itself  is  how  to 
move  towards  a  higher  degree  of  socialisation  fast 
enough  to  prevent  revolution,  and  yet  not  so  fast  as 
to  impose  institutions  more  highly  socialised  than  the 
individualistic  instincts  of  the  community  can  tolerate. 

It  is  impossible  to  define  these  limits  at  large,  for  they 
vary  in  every  community.  It  is,  however,  of  interest 
to  point  out  that  the  higher  the  degree  of  socialisation, 
the  more  rights  of  private  property  tend  to  be  curtailed, 
and  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule  that  when- 
ever rights  of  property  become  sufficiently  oppressive 
upon  a  sufficient  number  they  will  certainly,  under  a 
popular  government,  be  curtailed.  For  example,  the 
right  of  property  of  one  man  in  another  has  during 
this  century  been  denied  and  abrogated.     The  right  of 


230  INDIVIDUALISM 

a  landlord  to  ask  what  he  likes  for  his  land  has  been  cur- 
tailed in  Ireland.  The  right  of  a  capitalist  to  manage 
his  business  as  he  chooses  has  been  curtailed  by  factory 
legislation ;  and  the  growing  tendency  of  municipalities 
to  own  and  operate  their  own  franchises  is  daily  dimin- 
ishing the  scope  of  private  capital  and  correspondingly 
increasing  that  of  collectivism. 

Every  step  through  which  the  tendency  of  capital  to 
oppress  labour  has  been  diminished  serves  to  illustrate  a 
fact  of  no  small  importance  in  connection  with  the  prob- 
lem of  economic  liberty.  When  the  workingman  first 
attempted  to  emancipate  himself  from  what  he  regarded 
as  the  oppression  of  the  capitalist,  he  regarded  the  capi- 
talist as  his  enemy;  all  he  could  see  was  that  the 
capitalist  determined  his  rate  of  wages.  He  was  not 
sufficiently  well  informed  to  see  behind  the  capitalist 
the  remorseless  tyranny  of  the  Market.  To-day,  when 
he  has,  by  the  organisation  of  trade  imions  and  by  the 
daily  struggle  with  the  capitalist,  as  an  organised  body, 
become  enlightened  as  to  the  economic  conditions  under 
which  both  are  suffering,  he  has  become  aware  of  the  fact 
that  he  cannot  in  his  own  interests  demand  too  high  a 
rate  of  wages  from  his  employer,  because  the  moment 
the  rate  of  wages  becomes  sufficiently  high  to  consume 
the  margin  of  profit,  the  employee  ruins  the  employer. 
No  one  knows  better  than  the  orsfanised  trade  union 
how  merciless  is  the  oppression  of  the  Market  upon  the 
employer  as  well  as  upon  the  employee. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  system  of  private 
property  has  led  to  oppression,  and  that  workingmen  in 
the  early  part  of  the  century  were  persuaded  that  this 
oppression  was  entirely  due  to  the  greed  of  their  em- 
ployers. Now,  in  so  far  as  employers  are  lacking  in  gen- 
erosity and  in  a  souse  of  justi(;e  to  their  employees,  they 
ought  undoubtedly  to  be  held  responsible.     But  the  or- 


LIBERTY  231 

ganisatiou  of  trade  unions  has  had  for  effect  to  demon- 
strate to  the  workingmen  that  their  employers  are  very 
little  less  subject  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  than 
themselves.  For  example,  when  workingmen  were  suf- 
ficiently organised  to  make  a  collective  demand  for 
higher  wages,  they  often  found  themselves  confronted 
by  an  employer  who,  with  his  books  in  his  hands,  showed 
that  the  prices  he  obtained  for  the  product  of  their  work 
barely  left  himself  a  margin  for  existence,  and  that  any 
rise  in  wages  would  bring  the  cost  of  manufacture  to 
such  a  point  that  he  would  be  beaten  in  his  own  mar- 
ket by  foreign  competitors.  Now  the  officers  of  trade 
unions  in  England  have  attained  such  knowledge  and 
skill  in  computing  the  profit  of  their  employer  that 
they  often  know  more  exactly  what  the  employer  is 
earning  than  the  employer  himself ;  and  they  use  this 
information  to  determine  the  occasions  when  they  can 
demand  a  rise  in  wages  and  when,  on  the  contrary,  such 
demand  could  not  be  granted. 

In  this  manner  the  workingman  to-day  is  beginning 
to  understand  that  the  employer  is  as  much  under  the 
domination  of  market  price  as  the  employee  himself. 

But  the  Market  which  rules  mercilessly  employer  and 
employee  alike  exerts  a  perhaps  still  more  disastrous 
influence  beyond  national  limits.  Demand  is  by  no 
means  constant.  It  varies  with  the  wealth  and  prosper- 
ity of  the  community.  During  prosperous  periods  de- 
mand is  great ;  but  the  very  extent  of  demand  one  day 
is  a  sure  forerunner  of  a  decreased  demand  the  next,  and 
when  the  home  demand  diminishes,  what  is  to  become 
of  the  factories  which  have  been  mounted  on  a  scale  to 
meet  a  demand  which  no  longer  exists  ?  Must  the  fires 
of  the  factory  be  extinguished  ?  Must  the  workmen  be 
dismissed  to  starve  ?  Must  the  employer  lose  the  capi- 
tal he  has  invested  in  the  industry  ?     It  is  not  well  that 


232  INDIVIDUALISM 

any  of  these  things  should  occur,  and  to  prevent  this 
occurrence  there  is  no  other  way  than  for  the  manufac- 
turer to  seek  abroad  the  demand  which  no  longer  exists 
at  home. 

This  perpetually  recurring  state  of  things,  this  ten- 
dency of  production  to  outstrip  effectual  demand,  is  the 
goad  that  has  driven  England  to  colonise,  and  colonisa- 
tion is  only  another  word  for  conquest.  England  has 
no  choice ;  either  she  must  shut  down  her  factories  and 
see  her  self-respecting  workmen  driven  to  almshouses, 
or  she  must  compel  existing  communities  to  trade  with 
her  against  their  will  or  create  a  new  demand  by  creat- 
ing new  communities.  Both  of  these  systems  mean 
war,  for  colonisation  nearly  always  means  either  the 
conquest  of  natives  or  the  conquest  of  a  Power  which 
can  no  longer  keep  natives  in  control. 

The  African  continent  is  a  great  field  for  the  former 
of  these  two  processes ;  Turkey  and  Spain  the  Powers 
which  are  at  this  time  best  illustrating  the  second. 

The  Market,  or,  as  Adam  Smith  in  his  eulogy  of  the 
competitive  system  describes  it,  "  the  higgling  of  the 
Market,"  has  become  master  of  us  all. 

With  systematic  persistence,  the  automatic  regularity 
of  which  political  economists  until  very  lately  were 
never  weary  of  admiring,  the  Market  reduces  us  to  de- 
ceit amongst  ourselves,  —  caveat  emptor,  —  and,  as  re- 
gards our  neighbours,  to  conquest. 

Again,  great  wealth  creates  great  needs,  so  tliat  what 
is  a  luxury  to  a  workingman  becomes  a  necessity  to  a 
millionaire.  And  the  millionaire  who  is  for  ever  haunted 
by  a  fear  of  losing  the  wealth  that  makes  these  necessa- 
ries possible  is  driven  by  his  needs  to  the  task  of  accu- 
mulation ;  so  that,  as  all  things  the  millionaire  most 
values  in  the  world  can  be  obtained  only  tlirough  the 
instrumentality  of  wealth,  wherever  wealth  can  be  ac- 


LIBERTY  233 

cumulated  there  is  also  the  millionaire.     This  explains 
Johannesburg. 

But  the  object  of  this  exposition  is  not  to  condemn 
wealth.  On  the  contrary,  wealth  is  essential  to  civilisa- 
tion ;  to  abolish  wealth  in  a  State  would  be  to  condemn 
it  to  the  fate  of  Lacedaemon.  It  is  not  wealth  which  is 
the  enemy ;  it  is  the  competitive  system,  which,  under 
the  peaceful  guise  of  the  Market,  exerts  over  us  all,  cap- 
italist and  labourer  alike,  a  despotism  as  great  as  that  of 
Genghis  Khan.  As  great  and  more  immoral ;  for  whereas 
that  of  the  Khan  produced  in  its  victims  only  sub- 
serviency, that  of  the  Market  produces  selfishness,  ava- 
rice, and  deceit ;  it  sets  every  man  against  his  neighbour, 
by  stealth  within  the  community,  and  by  open  war  out- 
side of  it. 

The  enemy  of  justice  is  not  wealth ;  it  is  competition. 
To  abolish  competition  altogether  may  be  impossible; 
but  the  problem  of  how  far  competition  can  be  dimin- 
ished without,  in  the  effort  to  diminish  it,  causing  more 
misery  than  itself  occasions,  is  one  which  contemporane- 
ous history  shows  is  being  solved  only  in  those  civilisa- 
tions that  have  substituted  government  by  consent  for 
government  by  compulsion. 

It  is  in  England,  the  United  States,  Belgium,  France, 
Switzerland,  and  Germany  that  the  problem  is  being  at- 
tacked ;  not  in  Russia,  Turkey,  or  Thibet.  And  it  is  in 
proportion  as  the  government  is  indeed  a  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people  that  the  solution 
is  becoming  more  and  more  effectual.  Here,  then,  is  the 
value  of  what  we  have  termed  political  liberty,  because 
it  is  only  through  political  liberty  that  we  can  ever  hope 
to  acquire  all  the  rest. 

Now,  the  essential  machinery  through  which  political 
liberty  works  is  the  francliise. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  because  the  foregoing  pre- 


234  INDIVIDUALISM 

sents  an  argument  in  favour  of  popular  government  it  is 
assumed  that  the  government  which  the  people  enjoy  in 
the  countries  quoted  is  good  or  even  tolerable.  No  such 
assumption,  however,  is  intended.  On  the  contrary,  if 
any  assertion  on  this  subject  were  necessary,  it  would 
rather  be  to  the  effect  that  the  government  in  all  these 
countries  is  not  only  bad,  but  intolerably  so.  But  why 
is  it  bad?  Because  the  competitive  system  makes  it 
bad.  The  Market  rules  our  government  in  the  field  of 
politics  just  as  despotically  as  it  rules  the  citizen  in  the 
field  of  economics.  What  interferes  with  the  making 
of  good  laws?  The  financial  interests  of  our  legisla- 
tors. What  prevents  good  administration  of  the  laws 
we  have  ?  The  financial  interests  of  both  administra- 
tor and  administered.  Who  controls  the  United  States 
Senate?  The  Trusts.  Who  controls  the  New  York 
Legislature?  The  New  York  Central  Railroad.  Who 
controls  Parliament?  It  is  a  tradition  amongst  English- 
men that  no  man  controls  Parliament,  And  yet  we 
hear  faintly  sometimes  in  England  of  the  Beer  Interest, 
and  some  people  think  a  certain  Chartered  Company 
had  something  to  do  with  the  Transvaal  war. 

And  who  is  to  blame?  Can  a  man,  the  day  he  enters 
Parliament,  cease  to  live  ?  Must  he  not  derive  his  in- 
come from  some  business  ?  And  is  there  any  business 
in  the  world  which  is  not  or  cannot  be  affected  by 
legislation  ? 

We  are  caught  within  the  meshes  of  the  Market  inex- 
tricably. And  within  these  meshes  few  can  be  rich,  and 
fewer  still,  honest. 

In  considering  what  if  any  remedy  there  is  to  this 
wicked  condition  of  things  we  are  brought  back  to  the 
question  of  liberty.  We  have  seen  just  how  much  polit- 
ical liberty  we  enjoy,  and  we  ought  now  to  be  clear  as  to 


LIBERTY  235 

how  little  we  can  be  said  to  enjoy  economic  liberty  at 
all.  These  pages  will  have  been  written  in  vain  if  they 
have  not  also  made  clear  that  although  wealth  does  be- 
stow a  greater  economic  liberty  on  the  wealthy  than  on 
the  poor,  the  former  are  (with  wider  limits)  as  inevi- 
tably subject  to  the  dominion  of  the  Market  as  the  rest. 
This  condition  of  things  is  not  a  simple  one ;  it  is  ex- 
tremely complicated ;  to  understand  it  requires  a  careful 
study  of  political  economy  in  all  its  numerous  branches, 
—  industry,  trade,  finance,  currency.  Few  problems  re- 
quire more  knowledge  and  judgment  for  their  solution 
than  those  of  currency  and  finance ;  a  ratio  of  sixteen 
to  one  has  been  proposed  as  a  general  panacea  for  the 
woes  of  the  unwealthy,  and  the  injustice  of  the  enhance- 
ment in  value  of  one  metal  over  the  other  is  argued  in 
favour  of  it.  But  admitting  this  injustice,  admitting  that 
every  time  legal  tender  enhances  in  value  the  debtor 
class  is  wronged  in  the  interest  of  the  creditor,  it  is  by 
no  means  sure  that  the  condition  of  the  creditor  may 
not  be  such  as  to  render  a  sudden  reversal  more  perni- 
cious to  the  debtor  than  to  him.  Moreover,  if  the  sud- 
den enhancement  of  gold  in  its  relation  to  silver  was 
unjust  to  the  farmer,  the  sudden  depreciation  of  gold  in 
its  relation  to  silver  will  certainly  be  equally  unjust  to 
the  workingman.  Those  in  favour  of  Free  Silver  as- 
sume that  the  same  class  will  suffer  by  a  remonetisation 
of  silver  that  gained  by  its  demonetisation.  But  this 
may  not  be  true.  On  the  contrary,  the  man  who  will 
suffer  first  and  perhaps  most  from  such  a  remonetisation 
will  be  the  wage-earner. 

Again,  the  intricacies  of  finance  are  such  that  the  cap- 
italist can  often  gain  more  by  making  a  sacrifice  than  by 
refusing  it.  The  day  Jay  Gould  decided  to  disgorge  a 
part  of  his  ill-gotten  gains  he  gained  more  by  the  rise  in 
the  stock  of  the  company  to  which  he  made  restitution 
than  he  lost  by  what  he  restored. 


236  INDIVIDUALISM 

The  one  thing  necessary  in  order  to  solve  the  eco- 
nomic problem  is  knowledge.  Our  workingmen  are  in- 
telligent, and  they  have  in  most  of  their  trade  unions 
shown  a  remarkable  capacity  for  self-control  and  collec- 
tive action.  But  they  have  not  had  the  time  to  study ; 
their  knowledge  is  generally  limited  to  the  particular 
economic  conditions  under  which  they  work,  and  only  a 
very  few  of  them  have  ever  had  a  chance  to  peer  outside. 

Amongst  the  wealthy  there  is  a  growing  sympathy 
with  the  working  class  and  a  growing  indignation  at 
the  injustice  which  existing  conditions  occasion.  But 
most  of  this  class  are  so  absorbed  in  the  task  of  growing 
richer  that  they  have  little  time  to  give  to  study,  and 
those  who  do  study  generally  wear  blinders  imposed 
by  their  individual  interest  that  make  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge  difficult  and  that  of  wisdom  almost 
impossible. 

Ignorance,  then,  is  our  chief  enemy,  and  closely  al- 
lied with  Ignorance  is  Greed.  For  surely  the  desire  for 
wealth  —  in  whomsoever  it  may  be  —  which  pursues  it  at 
the  cost  of  poverty  for  others  is  greed.  And  in  the  word 
"  greed  "  is  included  not  only  the  greed  of  the  miser, 
which  is  obvious  and  contemptible,  but  the  greed  of  re- 
finement, which,  because  we  are  accustomed  to  it,  has 
ceased  to  be  obvious ;  the  greed  of  the  dainty  lady, 
which  blinds  her  to  the  injustice  of  the  conditions  sur- 
rounding her  through  her  dependence  on  the  delicate 
things  which  these  conditions  contribute  to  furnish ;  the 
greed  of  the  place-hunter,  of  the  politician,  nay,  even 
the  greed  of  the  Church.  The  competitive  system  per- 
mits of  wealth  enough  to  furnish  security  for  only  very 
few ;  the  large  majority  are  in  daily  fear  of  poverty,  and 
one-fifth  are  a  hopeless  prey  to  it.  And  so  one-fifth  of 
our  population  are  the  victims  of  Despair ;  and  the  rest 
are  the  slaves  of  Greed. 


LIBERTY  237 

§  5.  Conclusion 

In  conclusion,  the  liberty  or  license  of  the  savage 
state  is  attended  by  so  many  risks  that  as  a  matter  of 
fact  it  is  enjoyed  by  very  few,  sometimes  only  by  one, 
at  the  cost  of  all  the  rest.  This  is  a  part  of  the  preda- 
tory scheme  which  has  become  converted  into  the  great 
scientific  dogma  couched  in  the  words,  "  survival  of 
the  fittest."  All  the  vices  attend  it  and  are  promoted 
by  it,  —  selfishness,  ferocity,  and  lust.  The  finest  results 
of  its  handiwork  are  to  be  found  in  the  tiger  and  the 
ape, 

Man  has  sought,  by  the  exercise  of  intelligence  and 
self-control,  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  operation 
of  this  cruel  law ;  and  every  intelligent  sacrifice  he  has 
made  has  been  expressed  in  institutions  which  we  to-day 
recognise  as  so  many  steps  in  the  progress  of  civilisa- 
tion. The  very  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
which  condemns  the  individualist  to  solitude,  sav- 
agery, and  sin  comes  in  aid  of  every  wise  effort  towards 
socialisation ;  for  the  higher  the  degree  of  socialisation 
of  any  given  group,  the  stronger  it  is  in  the  conflict 
with  less  highly  socialised  enemies.  Thus  the  nations 
in  which  self-control  was  encouraged  by  the  institution 
of  monogamy  have  prevailed  over  those  in  which  polyg- 
amy or  polyandry  contributed  to  diminish  self-control 
rather  than  enhance  it.  And  the  nations  in  which 
patriarchs  surrendered  a  part  of  their  absolute  power 
over  their  homes  in  order  to  combine  against  a  common 
foe  prevailed  over  those  in  which  a  fierce  individualism 
made  this  sacrifice  impossible.  Tribes,  the  chiefs  of 
which  combined  to  constitute  the  Greek  city,  prevailed 
over  those  who  refused  to  make  the  sacrifice  neces- 
sitated by  such  a  combination.  But  the  Greek  cities 
whose  jealousies  prevented  permanent  combination  into 


238  INDIVIDUALISM 

a  great  State  were  conquered  by  a  nation  free  from 
such  local  impediments.  And  the  States  which  in 
America  have  yielded  their  sovereignty  to  a  powerful 
Federation  have  to-day  become  one  of  the  great  Powers 
of  the  earth. 

And  out  of  this  slowly  increasing  socialisation  emerge 
all  the  virtues,  because  socialisation  cannot  take  place 
without  them.     So   ferocity  tends  to  disappear  and  is 
replaced  by  courage ;  lust  is  replaced  by  love  ;  selfish- 
ness by  altruism ;  license  by  liberty.     And  this  process 
furnishes  an  answer  to  those  who  claim  that  virtue  is 
a  matter  of  opinion  and  geography.     Men's  minds  may 
differ  as  to  what  virtue  is;    obviously  there  is  a   pro- 
found difference  between  the  opinions  on  the  subject 
of  a  Washington  and  of  a  Ute ;  or  of  Aguinaldo  and 
McKinley ;  or  of  Kruger  and  Salisbury.     But  outside 
of  these  divergent  opinions  virtue  remains  as  clearly 
and  beautifully  delineated  as  the  Samothracean  Nike  ; 
headless,  perhaps,  and  armless,    but   still   standing   in 
superb  defiance  against  all  the  winds    of   controversy. 
For  virtue  in  any  given  community  is  an  embodiment 
of  its  socialisation.     Wherever  the  socialisation  is  low, 
virtue  is  low,  nay,  sometimes  buried,  as  the  Nike  was 
for  countless    years,   deep   down  under   the  mould  of 
ignorance.     But  when  wisdom  raises  tiie  level  of   so- 
cialisation and  removes  man  from  the  condition  of  the 
savage   towards   that   of    the   saint,    she    removes   the 
mould   of    ignorance  from  above  the   prostrate    limbs, 
she  lifts  the  goddess  on  her  feet,  and  sets  her  up  once 
more  upon  the  prow  of  the  ship  of  State,  —  a  symbol 
of  matter  made  alive  and  eternal  through  the  genius 
of  art  and  hope. 

Virtue,  then,  includes  all  those  qualities  necessary  to 
a  high  degree  of  socialisation.  Vice  includes  all  those 
qualities  that  make  socialisation  difficult  or  impossible. 


LIBERTY  239 

Applying  this  definition  to  liberty,  and  without  at- 
tempting at  this  time  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  what 
liberty  is,  we  may  roughly  divide  it  into  — 

Personal  liberty,  which  is  the  freedom  or  security 
from  physical  restraint  consistent  with  a  high  de- 
gree of  socialisation. 

Political  liberty,  which  is  the  freedom  or  security 
from  governmental  oppression  consistent  with  a 
high  degree  of  socialisation. 

Economic  liberty,  which  is  the  freedom  or  security  from 
want  consistent  with  a  high  degree  of  socialisation. 

In  many  countries  constitutional  government  has 
provided  the  machinery  through  which  political  liberty 
can  be  enjoyed ;  in  a  few,  such  provisions  as  those 
of  habeas  corpus  have  to  a  large  degree  secured  perso- 
nal liberty ;  but  in  none  is  economic  liberty  enjoyed 
save  by  a  comparative  minority;  and  a  large  major- 
ity are  reduced  by  economic  conditions  to  a  state  of 
subjection. 

Slowly  the  problem  of  economic  liberty  —  the  last 
of  our  great  political  problems  —  is  being  worked  out. 
The  solution  of  it  proposed  by  collectivism  is  the  one 
to  which  we  shall  next  direct  our  attention ;  and  in  the 
course  of  our  study  of  collectivism  we  shall  have  to  re- 
turn to  and  complete  that  of  liberty. 


BOOK  II.    COLLECTIVISM 


INTRODUCTION 

When  a  French  drayman  harnesses  his  three  Percherons 
to  his  cart,  he  sets  them  in  a  row  tandem  with  their 
heads  in  the  direction  to  which  he  desires  to  go,  and  by 
the  use  of  the  whip  and  certain  conventional  noises 
endeavours  to  co-ordinate  the  efforts  of  his  team  so  that 
they  all  act  as  a  unit  to  the  utmost  possible,  every  pound 
of  work  being  employed  usefully  to  move  the  cart  with 
the  least  waste  of  energy  in  the  desired  direction. 
What  should  we  say  of  a  drayman  who,  instead  of  unit- 
ing the  efforts  of  his  horses  by  harnessing  them  all  to 
the  same  end  of  his  cart,  should  attach  each  one  to  a 
different  end  of  it,  and,  applying  the  lash  impartially  to 
them  all,  set  each  one  upon  counteracting  the  efforts  of 
the  rest,  so  that  the  direction  be  determined  by  the  acci- 
dent which  horse  was  the  strongest,  and  the  speed  by 
the  difference  between  the  strength  of  one  horse  and 
that  of  those  pulling  against  him  ? 

We  should  say  that  such  a  drayman  was  mad.  And 
yet  this  is  practically  what  the  competitive  system 
does  in  setting  one  man  against  another  in  the  work 
of  production. 

Obviously  the  illustration  fails  in  many  particulars. 
In  such  occupations  as  farming,  every  farmer  produces 
the  things  which  the  community  needs  and  asks  for,  and 
to  this  extent  farmers  co-operate ;  but  it  is  the  interest 
of  every  farmer  that  his  neighbour's  crop  should  fail  in 

16 


242  COLLECTIVISM 

order  that  his  may  secure  a  better  price;  it  is  the  in- 
terest of  the  railroad  to  charge  as  high  a  price  as  it  can 
wrest  from  the  farmer  for  taking  his  crop  to  market ;  and 
it  is  the  interest  of  the  middleman  to  buy  the  farmer's 
crop  at  the  lowest  and  sell  at  the  highest  possible  price. 

To  this  extent,  therefore,  farmer,  middleman,  and 
railroad  are  working  against  one  another.  These  three 
represent  three  essential  factors  in  the  machinery  of 
economics,  —  the  producer,  the  transporter,  and  the 
salesman.  It  would  be  useful  to  the  community  that 
these  three  dray  horses  should  pull  together  instead  of 
pulling  against  one  another,  and  in  some  communities, 
by  the  adoption  of  a  simple  expedient,  the  folly  of  our 
mad  drayman's  system  is  eliminated.  In  South  Aus- 
tralia the  railroads  are  owned  by  the  State ;  the  State 
carries  goods  as  well  as  letters  and  telegrams.  It 
has  receiving-depots  and  a  produce-export  depot,  and 
through  the  agency  of  the  State  the  farmer  can  convert 
his  produce  into  money  with  the  assistance  of  the  trans- 
porter and  salesman  instead  of  in  conflict  with  him. 
"Now  in  South  Australia  all  the  farmer  has  to  do 
when  he  wishes  to  send  a  box  of  butter,  honev,  or  some 
sheep  abroad,  is  to  write  to  the  agricultural  department, 
and  if  they  are  approved  and  forwarded,  the  consignor 
has  nothing  more  to  do  but  sit  at  home  and  await  re- 
turns by  check."  1 

The  principle  of  extending  the  sphere  of  government 
so  as  to  substitute  co-operation  for  competition,  as  illus- 
trated by  this  South  Australian  system,  is  tlie  principle 
of  collectivism;  and  those  who  believe  in  the  possibility 
of  ultimately  extending  this  principle  to  its  utmost 
limits  look  forward  to  a  day  when  the  State  will  own 
all  so-called  "sources  of  production,"  leaving  to  indi- 

^  Bulletin  of  the  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  New  Series, 
No.  10,  {).  9. 


INTRODUCTION  243 

viduals  property  only  in  the  things  they  for  personal 
convenience  and  enjoyment  use. 

There  is,  however,  a  widespread  ignorance  as  to  the 
effect  of  this  system,  and  it  may,  therefore,  be  well  at 
once  to  point  out  that  it  is  by  no  means  so  revolutionary 
as  is  generally  imagined.  For  example,  were  the  State 
sole  owner  of  the  land,  there  need  be  but  little  difference 
between  our  tenure  under  the  State  and  our  tenure  to- 
day. Every  man  who  occupies  land  under  the  present 
system  contributes  to  the  extent  of  his  occupation  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  State.  This  contribution  ^  is  called 
a  tax  to-day;  in  a  collectivist  State  it  would  be  called 
rent.  The  principal  change  effected  by  collectivism 
would  be  as  to  the  extent  of  any  one  man's  holdings. 
In  such  a  State  no  Winans  could  evict  whole  villages 
in  order  to  secure  a  deer  forest  for  his  exclusive  personal 
enjoyment ;  nor  could  a  French  chocolate  manufacturer 
depopulate  a  Canadian  island  larger  than  one  of  our 
United  States  for  a  game  preserve.  But  every  man 
could  enjoy  the  exclusive  use  of  such  land  as  he  could 
within  reasonable  limits  require,  under  a  tenure  just  as 
secure  as  —  or,  with  this  Anticosti  experience  fresh  in 
our  minds,  shall  we  not  say  far  more  secure  than  —  un- 
der the  existing  plan. 

Another  widespread  mistake  regarding  collectivism 
consists  in  the  notion  that  it  involves  the  division  of 
property  amongst  the  people.  On  the  contrary,  far 
from  involving  the  principle  of  division  or  dissipation, 
collectivism  is  the  embodiment  of  the  principle  of  con- 
centration. Mark  Twain  wittily  objects  to  the  proverb, 
"  Don't  put  all  your  eggs  in  one  basket,"  by  substituting 
for  it,  "  On  the  contrary,  put  all  your  eggs  in  one  basket, 
but  watch  that  basket."  Collectivism  proposes  to  vest 
in  the  State  both  land  and  capital,  the  private  ownership 

^  In  France  taxes  are  called  just  what  they  are,  "contributions." 


244  COLLECTIVISM 

of  which  now  sets  man  against  man,  and  to  vest  it  under 
conditions  which  will  put  men  shoulder  to  shoulder  in 
co-operative  production,  eliminating  anxiety,  diminish- 
ing toil,  and  permitting  a  leisure  and  a  freedom  for  the 
promotion  of  knowledge,  culture,  and  art  which  the 
world  has  not  yet  seen.  Above  all,  the  economy  of  time 
occasioned  by  such  a  system  would  permit  every  indi- 
vidual voter  to  exercise  a  watchfulness  over  the  State 
which  is  impossible  under  existing  conditions,  and  the 
impossibility  of  which  is  perhaps  the  principal  cause  of 
administrative  mismanagement  and  political  corruption. 
Collectivists  do  not  necessarily  demand  or  expect  that 
collectivism  be  introduced  suddenly  or  by  violent  means 
into  the  State.     On  the  contrary,  temperate  collectivists 

—  and  we  may  disregard  the  views  of  the  intemperate 

—  ask  for  nothing  more  than  the  gradual  introduction 
of  a  less  unintelligent  and  of  a  less  immoral  economic 
system,  by  .just  such  reforms  as  are  being  introduced 
to-day  in  almost  every  civilised  country.  In  England 
municipalities  are  annually  increasing  the  scope  of  their 
activities,  acquiring  their  own  gas-plants,  water-works, 
and  tramway  systems;  the  same  thing  is  taking  place 
in  the  United  States.  In  Switzerland  the  State  has 
just  decided  to  purchase  its  railroads;  in  Belgium, 
Prussia,  and  Austria  the  State  owns  many  of  them. 
In  New  Zealand  and  Australia  State  ownership  is  still 
more  largely  recognised.  The  collectivist,  therefore, 
preaches  nothing  new,  but  rather  justifies  a  political 
movement  that  has  already  begun. 

It  is  possible  and  even  probable  that  the  movement 
may  proceed  too  fast;  that  the  State  may  not  be  able  to 
accommodate  itself  to  all  the  new  functions  which  it  is 
perhaps  in  some  countries  too  rapidly  assuming.  In 
such  case  a  reaction  will  undoubtedly  set  in,  and  such 
a  reaction  the  prudent   collectivist   will    not  violently 


INTRODUCTION  245 

resist.  Such  reactions  furnish  the  periods  of  rest  al- 
ready alluded  to,^  which  are  found  to  be  indispensable 
to  organic  development,  and  during  such  reactions,  and 
indeed  at  all  times,  individualists  will  be  for  ever  clam- 
ouring against  collectivism  and  pointing  out  the  hope- 
lessness of  the  ideal  towards  which  collectivists  are 
strivino-.  It  is  important,  then,  that  this  coUectivist 
ideal  be  temperately  set  forth,  in  order  to  silence  the 
contention  that  it  is  altogether  ridiculous. 

In  order  to  anticipate  this  clamour  it  is  important  also 
to  point  out,  first,  the  difference  between  collectivism  as 
a  method  from  collectivism  as  an  ideal,  and,  secondly, 
that,  even  as  an  ideal,  collectivism  is  not  the  utterly 
insane  thing  people  generally  imagine  it  to  be. 

As  regards  the  first  point,  it  is  unnecessary  to  repeat 
here  what  has  already  been  explained  in  the  preface; 
and  as  regards  the  second,  no  more  need  be  added  than 
the  consideration  that  the  practicability  of  ideal  collec- 
tivism forms  no  essential  parts  of  coUectivist  doctrine. 
This  last  is  so  important  a  point  that  it  deserves  careful 
emphasis. 

It  would  be  perfectly  proper  to  leave  out  of  this  work 
all  reference  to  ideal  collectivism,  and,  indeed,  in  the 
first  plan  laid  down  it  was  decided  to  treat  ideal  col- 
lectivism as  a  non-essential  and  leave  it  out  of  the 
discussion  altogether.  To  this  method  of  treatment, 
however,  there  is  a  serious  objection.  Individualists 
find  their  strongest  ground  of  vantage  in  the  supposed 
impracticability  of  collectivism,  both  as  a  method  and 
as  an  ideal,  and,  in  discussing  its  demerits,  confound 
the  two  so  as  to  throw  upon  the  method  some  of  the 
objections  that  apply  only  to  the  ideal,  and  upon  the 
ideal  some  that  apply  only  to  the  method.  For  example, 
it  is  an  objection  to  ideal  collectivism  that  men  are  not 

1  Vol  I.,  pp.  157-164. 


246  COLLECTIVISM 

yet  good  and  wise  enough  for  it,  but  this  objection  does 
not  apply  to  the  method;  for  if  New  York  is  not  too 
bad  and  foolish  to  own  its  own  water-works,  it  is  not 
too  bad  and  foolish  to  own  its  gas-works  also.  Again, 
it  may  be  an  objection  to  the  method  that  municipal 
ownership  may  lead  to  extravagance,  but  this  objection 
has  no  application  to  ideal  collectivism,  the  economy 
of  which  no  one  will  put  in  question.  Again,  individ- 
ualists, in  discussing  the  method,  are  never  tired  of 
pointing  out  the  hopelessness  of  the  ideal  to  which  it 
tends;  they  denounce  the  suggestion  that  New  York 
should  own  its  gas-works  as  "  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge," 
and  disparage  the  programme  by  derisive  taunts  at  the 
ideal.  Now,  although  men  are  not  to-day  fit  for  ideal 
collectivism,  and  it  would  probably  be  a  great  mistake 
to  attempt  suddenly  to  introduce  it,  the  scheme  itself, 
as  applied  to  an  improved  generation,  is  not  as  foolish 
a  thing  as  individualists  maintain  it  to  be.  If  indi- 
vidualists were  right  in  contending  that  the  extension 
of  State  functions  would  inevitably  lead  us  to  peril  or 
ruin,  then  we  should  have  to  pause  before  entering  upon 
it.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  extension  of  State  func- 
tions may  lead  us  to  continually  improved  conditions, 
and  if  introduced  gradually  cannot  have  for  consequence 
anything  worse  than  a  temporary  stay  in  the  progress 
towards  such  improvement,  then  this  clamour  of  indi- 
vidualists about  the  "  thin  end  of  the  wedge  "  may  be 
disregarded ;  and  if,  pushing  our  argument  to  its  extreme 
limits,  the  big  end  of  the  wedge  turns  out  to  be  nothing 
worse  than  the  very  best  condition,  economic,  social, 
and  political,  that  humanity  is  at  all  capable  of,  then 
this  clamour  can  be  turned  against  the  individualists, 
and  out  of  it  a  justification  found  for  the  very  pro- 
gramme against  which  it  is  directed. 

For  this  reason  it  has  been  considered  wise  to  look  at 


INTRODUCTION  247 

this  dreaded  Gorgon  of  collectivism  in  the  face,  take 
it  at  its  very  worst,  scan  it  feature  by  feature,  and 
challenge  for  ourselves  with  deliberation  the  conclusions 
that  many  are  induced  to  assume  from  others  through 
ridicule. 

Without  admitting,  therefore,  that  it  is  incumbent 
upon  the  practical  collectivist  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
man  who  proposes  collectivism  as  a  programme  —  to 
prove  the  attainability  of  ideal  collectivism  or  collec- 
tivism regarded  as  an  end,  the  attempt  will  be  made  to 
present  the  scheme  of  government  to  which  collectivism 
tends,  in  its  least  practicable  extreme,  so  that  we  may 
deliberately  study  the  very  worst  that  can  happen  to  us 
by  persevering  in  the  collectivist  programme.  And  in- 
cidentally it  may  be  pointed  out  that  while  individual- 
ists are  for  ever  sneering  at  the  hopelessly  happy  results 
of  the  collectivist  programme,  they  carefully  keep  in 
the  background  the  hopelessly  unhappy  condition  to 
which  their  own  condemns  us.  They  mock  at  col- 
lectivists  for  having  an  ideal,  but  are  silent  as  to  the 
fact  that  they  themselves  have  none.  They  warn  us 
that  collectivist  schemes  of  improvement  are  too  beauti- 
ful to  be  true,  forgetting  that  the  pathos  of  their  own 
programme  is  too  true  to  be  beautiful. 

The  enormity  of  believing  that  human  misery  can  be 
lessened  is  the  charge  brought  against  collectivism, 
whether  as  a  method  or  as  an  ideal.  Let  us,  then, 
grapple  with  it  at  its  worst,  in  its  most  undiluted  shape, 
and  judge  for  ourselves  whether,  even  if  to  the  utmost 
degree  possible  realised,  it  would  be  as  bad  as  it  has  been 
painted. 

Before  presenting,  however,  the  collectivist  ideal,  one 
reservation  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasised:  it  has 
been  explained  that  no  reasonable  collectivist  proposes 
to  introduce  a  complete   collectivist   system   suddenly 


248  COLLECTIVISM 

upon  the  State.  Of  the  many  reasons  against  such  an 
attempt  the  principal  one,  perhaps,  is  that  the  existing 
generation  is  totally  unfit  for  it.  But  a  social  condition 
which  would  be  impossible  to  our  generation  would  be 
not  only  possible  but  highly  beneficial  to  a  generation 
that  had  been  educated  to  it.  If  in  a  community  no 
child  had  ever  seen  one  man  working  for  another,  but 
every  child  had  from  its  infancy  been  accustomed  to  the 
thought  that  every  human  being  without  exception  was 
expected  to  devote  three  or  four  hours  out  of  the  day 
to  the  work  of  the  State,  there  would  be  neither  desire 
to  reduce  fellow-creatures  to  servitude  nor  repugnance 
at  the  necessity  of  compulsory  work.  In  other  words,  a 
condition  that  would  be  intolerable  to  such  of  us  as  seem 
to-day  to  be  masters  of  our  own  time  and  of  that  of 
others,  would  not  be  intolerable  to  a  future  generation  to 
which  such  an  apparent  mastery  had  never  been  known. 

All  the  instincts  of  the  wealthy  and  of  the  educated 
have  been  formed  under  conditions  so  different  from 
those  of  a  collectivist  State  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to 
conceive  of  such  a  State  without  repugnance.  In  order 
properly  to  understand  ideal  collectivism,  we  ought  to 
divest  ourselves  of  these  instincts  and  consider  it  from 
the  point  of  view,  not  of  ourselves,  but  of  the  future 
generation,  whose  moral  instincts  will  not  have  been 
blunted  by  the  habit  of  lording  it  over  their  fellow- 
creatures. 

If  we  can  rid  our  minds  of  the  immoral  prejudices 
which  our  economic  conditions  have  imposed  upon  us, 
we  may  then  be  able  to  weigh  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  collectivism,  —  not  for  ourselves,  who  are 
unfit  for  it,  but  for  an  as  yet  unborn  generation  less 
ill  used  than  ourselves  by  prosperity  and  selfishness. 

The  task  is  a  difficult  one,  and  yet  it  is  indispensable 
to  a  fair  estimate  of  collectivism.      Those,  therefore, 


INTRODUCTION  249 

who  are  incapacitated  by  selfish  instincts  from  accom- 
plishing it,  are  not  likely  to  read  the  following  pages 
understandingly.  It  is  only  for  those  who  can  escape 
from  the  bondage  of  instinct  that  the  attempt  will  be 
made  to  give  some  account  of  a  scheme  of  government 
that  they  only  can  understand.  But,  however  difficult  it 
may  be  for  us  to-day  to  appreciate  the  possibilities  of  a 
complete  collectivism,  it  is  by  no  means  so  difficult  to 
understand  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  slow 
application  of  collectivist  principles  in  so  far  as  the 
present  generation  is  capable  of  it.  It  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated  that  it  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  col- 
lectivism, whether  regarded  as  an  economic  theory  or  as 
a  political  programme,  that  it  should  be  proved  to  be 
ever  possible  or  practicable  in  its  ideal  or  ultimate 
development.  The  principal  aim  of  this  book  is  to 
destroy  the  doctrine  of  Herbert  Spencer  that  there  are 
sound  scientific,  economic,  or  political  grounds  for  re- 
ducing government  to  the  least  possible.  The  extent 
to  which  collectivism  can  be  wisely  resorted  to  depends 
upon  the  economic,  political,  and  moral  development  of 
the  people.  Many  intelligent  Italians  believe  Milan  to 
be  capable  of  assuming  the  control  of  its  own  franchises, 
but  would  deplore  any  general  attempt  at  the  munici- 
palisation  of  franchises  in  all  the  cities  of  Italy.  Keep- 
ing in  view,  then,  the  essentially  local  character  of  the 
political  problem  presented  by  collectivism,  let  us  attack 
the  question  of  collectivism  by  considering  the  definition 
of  it  given  by  Schaffie,  who  has  written  one  book  for  the 
purpose  of  telling  us  what  it  is,  and  another  for  the  pur- 
pose of  explaining  that  it  is  impossible. 


250  COLLECTIVISM 


CHAPTER  I 

WHAT    IS    COLLECTIVISM? 

ScHAFFLE  defines  collectivism  as  follows :  — 

"  The  economic  quintessence  of  the  socialistic  programme, 
the  real  aim  of  the  international  movement,  is  as  follows : 

"  To  replace  the  system  of  private  capital  (i.  e.  the  specu- 
lative method  of  production,  regulated  on  behalf  of  society 
only  by  the  free  competition  of  private  enterprises)  by  a 
system  of  collective  capital ;  that  is,  by  a  method  of  pro- 
duction, which  would  introduce  a  unified  (social  or  'col- 
lective') organisation  of  national  labour,  on  the  basis  of 
collective  or  common  ownership  of  the  means  of  production 
by  all  the  members  of  the  society.  This  collective  method 
of  production  would  remove  the  present  competitive  system 
by  placing  under  official  administration  such  departments 
of  production  as  can  be  managed  collectively  (socially  or 
co-operatively)  as  well  as  the  distribution  among  all  of 
the  common  produce  of  all,  according  to  the  amount  of 
social  utility  of  the  productive  labour  of  each. 

"  This  represents  in  the  shortest  possible  formula  the  aim 
of  the  socialism  of  to-day,  however  variously  expressed, 
and  in  some  cases  obscurely  conceived,  may  be  the  proposed 
methods  for  attaining  it."  ^ 

To  this  account  of  ideal  collectivism  the  following 
observations  may  be  made :  — 

In  the  first  place,  if  I  were  undertaking  to  make  a 
definition  of  ideal  collectivism,  I  should  avoid  the  use 
of  the  word  "  official "  because  the    official   under  our 

1  The  Quintessence  of  Socialism,  Dr.  A.  Schaffle,  p.  3. 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  251 

present  system  is  and  must  be  a  totally  different  person 
from  the  official  under  the  collectivist  State,  for  reasons 
which  will  be  explained  later.  To  use  the  word  "offi- 
cial," therefore,  in  connection  with  the  administration  of 
a  collectivist  State,  is  to  associate  with  such  a  State  the 
notion  of  an  intolerable  bureaucracy.  As  this  is  one 
of  the  standing  objections  to  collectivism  it  will  have 
to  be  considered  separately  later  on. 

In  the  second  place,  and  this  is  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant change  that  will  be  proposed  to  Schaffle's  for- 
mula, the  attempt  to  distribute  "  among  all  the  common 
produce  of  all,  according  to  the  amount  of  social  utility 
of  the  productive  labour  of  each,"  is  not  a  necessary 
feature  of  collectivism.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  form 
of  collectivism  that  seems  least  impractical,  there  will 
be  comparatively  little  attempt  made  to  distribute  the 
income  of  the  community  amongst  its  members  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  or  utility  of  the  productive  labour 
of  each,  but  rather  all  will  to  the  utmost  possible  share 
equally  in  the  income  of  the  community.  Nevertheless, 
the  inevitable  natural  inequalities  amongst  men  will 
make  it  much  easier  for  some  to  perform  their  allotted 
task  than  others,  and  therefore,  although  all  will  receive 
the  same  share  of  the  community  income,  some  will  re- 
ceive it  with  less  labour,  and  doubtless  with  less  disa- 
greeable labour,  than  others ;  and  these,  as  they  enjoy  a 
larger  leisure  than  the  others,  will  be  at  liberty  to  apply 
this  leisure  either  to  their  own  pleasure  and  advantage 
or  to  the  public  good.  Moreover,  no  rigid  rules  can  be 
laid  down  on  this  point.  The  collectivism  of  one  State 
is  likely  to  differ  from  that  of  other  States  just  as  much 
as  popular  government  in  the  United  States  differs  from 
popular  government  in  France.  It  may  be  found  con- 
venient to  confine  the  system  of  equal  sharing  to  the 
barest  necessaries  of  life,  or,  on  the  contrary,  to  apply  it 


252  COLLECTIVISM 

to  all  its  comforts  and  superfluities;  this  will  depend 
upon  the  character  of  the  people  and  the  extent  of  their 
development. 

Justice,  according  to  many  authors,  demands  that 
men  should  be  rewarded  according  to  their  utility,  —  in 
other  words,  that  human  institutions  should  proceed 
exactly  as  Nature  does ;  for  Nature  begins  by  commit- 
ting the  injustice  of  favouring  one  individual  at  birth 
more  than  another;  and  she  adds  to  this  injustice 
throughout  the  entire  life  of  her  favourite;  for  the 
favours  granted  at  birth  continue  throughout  his  life  so 
to  operate  as  to  sacrifice  all  others  to  him.  Now,  this 
consequence  of  natural  injustice  at  birth  is  exactly  what 
man  has  attempted  to  resist;  he  has  already  so  far  suc- 
ceeded that  the  man  of  excelling  muscular  strength  no 
longer  lords  it  over  his  fellows,  but  he  has  substituted 
for  the  tyranny  of  muscular  strength  the  tyranny  of  that 
particular  form  of  craft  which  is  skilful  in  amassing 
wealth.  One  tyranny  is  as  bad,  and  in  some  respects 
worse,  than  the  other.  The  moral  rule  is  not,  "  Do  unto 
others  according  as  they  are  able  to  do  unto  you;  "  it  is, 
"  Do  unto  others  according  as  you  would  they  should  do 
unto  you."  Act  with  others  according  to  their  weak- 
ness and  your  own,  rather  than  according  to  their 
strength  and  your  own.  In  other  words,  diminish  for 
every  man  the  consequence  of  Nature's  injustice.  If 
he  is  sick,  nurse  him;  if  he  is  weak,  strengthen  him. 
This  is  the  order  of  justice. 

But  even  if  this  moral  rule  be  set  aside  as  non- 
existing,  if  we  look  only  to  the  question  how  we  can  so 
frame  our  institutions  as  to  make  the  whole  sum  of  hap- 
piness tlie  greatest  possible,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  differ- 
ent economic  system  might  substitute  for  selfishness  that 
form  of  it  wliich  seeks  satisfaction  mainly  through  the 

1  See  chap,  v.,  Practical  Working  of  Collectivism. 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  253 

satisfaction  of  others.  In  communities  of  ants  and  bees 
nature  has  done  it ;  and  man  can  do  it  for  himself  by 
suppressing  the  seliishness  that  characterises  our  present 
competitive  system  and  is  at  the  same  time  the  direct 
consequence  of  it. 

One  of  the  worst  results  of  our  competitive  system 
is  that  it  rewards  men  according  to  their  deeds,  giv- 
ing to  the  few  more  than  they  need,  and  to  the  many 
less ;  stimulating  them  to  effort  for  the  purpose  of  bene- 
fiting self,  instead  of  for  the  purpose  of  benefiting  the 
community.  The  higher  order  of  selfishness,  called 
altruism,  has  already  been  realised  in  the  family:  a  man 
works  for  his  family  because  he  loves  it;  altruism  has 
also  been  realised,  but  to  a  less  degree,  in  the  city  and 
the  State.  A  man  will  work  for  his  country  —  nay, 
will  die  for  it  —  because  he  loves  it.  The  next  step  in 
altruism  is  not  so  impossible  as  it  seems,  if  once  our 
institutions  make  it  possible.  Relieve  a  man  from  the 
necessity  of  always  working  for  himself,  and  he  will 
soon  acquire  and  possibly  delight  in  the  taste  for  work- 
ing for  others. 

The  form  of  ideal  collectivism  then  proposed  here  is 
one  in  which  every  man  will  receive  to  the  utmost  pos- 
sible the  same  share  of  the  national  income,  and  not  one 
that  gives  to  men  according  to  their  deeds ;  for  this  last 
would  stimulate  selfishness,  and  selfishness  is  the  great 
obstacle  to  human  happiness.  Those  who  propose  to 
admit  this  stimulus  into  the  ideal  collectivist  State  lose 
the  moral  point  of  collectivism,  the  main  purpose  of 
which  is  to  strike  at  the  root  of  selfishness.  To  expose 
society  to  the  changes  involved  in  collectivism  without 
removing  the  stimulus  of  selfishness  would,  from  the 
moral  point  of  view,  be  to  attack  the  symptom  and  leave 
undiminished  the  disease. 

The  Spencerian  doctrine  that  justice  involves  the  idea 


254  COLLECTIVISM 

of  "inequality  of  benefits"  is  consistent  with  the  brutal 
predatory  plan  of  Nature,  but  inconsistent  with  the 
human  ideal  which  seeks  to  compensate  the  unfortu- 
nate for  the  unhappiness  to  which  natural  defects  ex- 
pose them.  For  gifted  men  are  those  whom  Nature 
favours;  every  gift  is  a  source  of  happiness.  Intelli- 
gence furnishes  the  resource  of  mental  stimulation ;  all 
creative  faculty  bestows  moments  of  creative  rapture; 
physical  strength  contributes  to  the  joy  of  life ;  all  these 
things  are  in  themselves  sources  of  happiness.  Our 
present  social  institutions  add  wealth  to  these  gifted 
men,  so  that  they  not  only  enjoy  the  happiness  that  flows 
naturally  from  their  natural  gifts,  but  also  the  further 
happiness  that  springs  from  riches.  A  lawyer  enjoys 
the  exercise  of  his  profession;  he  would  not  willingly 
abandon  the  triumphs  of  the  court-room  in  order  to 
break  stones  on  the  highway.  A  journalist  enjoys  the 
sparkle  of  his  own  editorial;  the  sculptor  enjoys  the 
plasticity  his  art  gives  to  implastic  stone.  Their  occu- 
pation is  in  itself  a  delight;  it  ought  to  be  delight 
enough,  and  would  be  delight  enough,  were  necessaries 
and  ordinary  comfort  provided  for  them.  But  under 
our  competitive  system,  success  in  the  struggle  for 
wealth  brings  to  these  men  wealth  also,  whereas  the 
ungifted  have  poverty  added  to  the  drudgery  of  their 
employment.  These  are  the  conditions  condemned  by 
Christ  in  the  words :  "  Unto  every  one  that  hath  shall 
be  given,  .  .  .  but  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be 
taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath." 

Were  this  a  necessary  condition,  it  would  have  to  be 
endured;  but  Christ  has  himself  suggested  a  different 
ideal,  —  one  under  which  the  gifted  man  shall  account  to 
his  fellow-creatures  for  his  gifts,  and  not  make  of  them 
an  instrument  of  oppression ;  one  under  which  tlie  un- 
gifted man  shall  at  any  rate  be  assured  by  the  community 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  255 

the  same  necessaries  and  ordinary  comforts  as  the  gifted ; 
and  thus  —  if  he  may  not  enjoy  the  raptures  of  the  crea- 
tive faculty  —  he  may  at  any  rate  be  saved  from  anxiety 
and  want.  So  only  can  be  realised  the  social  condition 
proposed  by  Christ  under  which  "Unto  whomsoever 
much  is  given,  of  him  shall  be  much  required ;  and  to 
whom  men  have  committed  much,  of  him  they  will  ask 
the  more." 

The  aim  of  collectivism  is  to  substitute  love  of  the 
neighbour  for  love  of  self  by  framing  institutions  that 
make  this  substitution  possible.  Nature  furnishes  us 
with  such  institutions  in  the  beehive  and  the  ant's  nest. 
These,  however,  must  be  adapted  to  the  care  for  the 
individual  which  characterises  human  justice  and  is 
conspicuous  by  its  absence  from  animal  communities. 
But  the  fact  that  Nature  has  furnished  us  a  model  of 
collectivism  must  not  be  forgotten  in  answer  to  those 
who  contend  that  collectivism  is  impossible  because  it 
is  contrary  to  Nature. 

The  form  of  collectivism  proposed  by  Schaffle  is  that 
in  which  the  members  of  the  community  are  to  receive 
an  income  proportionate  to  deeds,  whereas  that  proposed 
by  the  form  of  collectivism  under  discussion  will 
distribute  national  income  in  proportion  to  needs ;  the 
needs  of  every  individual  being  recognised  as  practically 
the  same. 

I  say  practically,  because,  in  working  out  the  scheme, 
considerable  difference  will  be  found  to  exist  between 
individuals  in  this  respect,  and  these  differences  of 
needs  will  give  rise  to  differences  of  possession  without 
unduly  stimulating  selfishness  or  causing  discontent. 
A  study  of  these  details,  however,  must  be  postponed 
until  the  main  lines  of  the  collectivist  scheme  have 
been  presented. 

Another  reason  why  a  collectivism  which  endeavours 


256  COLLECTIVISM 

to  distribute  national  income  according  to  the  utility  of 
the  labour  of  each  is  not  recommended  as  a  solution  of 
our  social  problem  is  this :  we  have  laid  down  the  gen- 
eral proposition  that  if  the  environment  is  one  which 
stimulates  selfishness,  the  individual  will  tend,  under  the 
influence  of  this  environment,  to  become  more  selfish. 
Now,  if  the  collectivism  proposed  continually  urges 
individuals  to  work  for  the  State  for  no  other  motive 
than  that  their  work  result  in  direct  advantage  to 
themselves,  they  will  not  be  working  for  the  community, 
but  for  themselves.  The  moral  purpose  of  collectivism, 
in  so  far  as  it  attempts  to  solve  the  problem  of  environ- 
ment, is  to  substitute  for  this  sort  of  selfish  interest  an 
interest  in  the  community  which  will  benefit  self  only 
on  the  condition  of  equally  benefiting  all  the  other 
members  thereof.  That  those  most  gifted  by  nature, 
and  therefore  able  to  accomplish  their  work  with  the 
least  pain  to  themselves,  are  to  receive  a  larger  share  of 
the  national  income  than  their  less  gifted  brothers,  who 
are  obliged,  in  order  to  perform  their  allotted  task,  to 
work  longer  hours  at  an  occupation  possibly  less  agree- 
able to  themselves,  is  clearly  neither  just  in  principle 
nor  beneficial  in  result ;  for  such  a  system  would  tend  to 
stimulate  the  very  same  kind  of  selfishness  as  is  stimu- 
lated by  our  present  system,  and  as  it  is  the  moral  pur- 
pose of  collectivism  to  eradicate.  If,  therefore,  the 
conclusions  to  which  we  have  come  in  the  preceding 
pages  are  at  all  sound,  such  a  collectivism  as  this  woukl 
fail  to  solve  the  moral  problem  which  we  have  before 
us ;  namely,  the  problem  of  how  to  modify  our  artificial 
environment  so  that  instead  of  stimulating  selfishness 
it  will  stimulate  the  reverse  of  selfishness,  or  altruism. 

The  form  of  collectivism,  therefore,  that  will  best 
meet  what  seem  to  be  the  moral  necessities  of  the  situ- 
ation is  one  in  which  no  individual  can  gain  much  save 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  257 

through  the  gain  of  all  his  fellows,  the  motive  of  every 
man  being  as  much  as  possible  to  benefit  the  whole  com- 
munity, and  only  through  the  benefit  of  the  whole  com- 
munity benefit  himself.  In  addition,  however,  to  the 
theoretical  argument  against  dividing  income  according 
to  deeds  derived  from  the  advisableness  of  diminishing 
selfishness  in  the  community,  there  is  a  practical  argu- 
ment against  it  which  is  of  no  small  importance : 

Those  who  oppose  collectivism  very  properly  point 
out  that  if  the  social  income  is  to  be  divided  according 
to  deeds,  the  division  must  be  intrusted  to  the  govern- 
ment ;  and  that  the  power  of  determining  how  much  of 
social  income  is  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  various  members 
of  a  community  is  a  power  far  greater  in  extent  and  far 
more  liable  to  abuse  than  any  power  enjoyed  by  any 
civilised  government  to-day.  If  the  scramble  for  ofiSce, 
which  must  always  take  place,  whatever  be  the  economic 
scheme  of  society,  is  to  be  intensified  by  the  fact  that  the 
heads  of  the  government  are  not  only  to  enjoy  the  con- 
sideration and  authority  that  pertain  to  office,  but  also 
are  to  have  the  power  of  distributing  national  income 
according  to  deeds,  politics  would,  under  such  a  system, 
tend  to  become  a  field  for  the  basest  intrigue  and  the 
most  remorseless  audacity.  Such  a  collectivism  would 
submit  the  fortune  of  every  individual  to  the  ipse  dixit 
of  those  who  had  control  of  the  government.  A  more 
arbitrary  form  of  government,  or  one  more  likely  to  re- 
sult in  injustice,  cannot  well  be  conceived.  It  is  true 
that  ingenious  plans  have  been  devised  for  determining 
division  according  to  deeds ;  but  all  of  them  must  neces- 
sarily give  rise  to  endless  discussion  and  manifold  inter- 
pretations, and  would  have  ultimately  to  be  left  to  the 
decision  of  some  State  official,  administrative  or  judi- 
cial. Hence  would  arise  the  necessity  for  a  large  and 
expensive  judicial  organisation  with  an  elaborate  system 

17 


258  COLLECTIVISM 

of  courts,  juries,  lawyers,  attorney-generals,  and  district 
attorneys ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  probable  that  the  economy 
resulting  from  collective  production  would  be  more  than 
compensated  by  the  waste  of  time  involved  in  the  deter- 
mination of  how  collective  income  should  be  divided. 

The  scheme  of  collectivism,  therefore,  proposed  in 
these  pages  proceeds  upon  a  simpler  plan:  it  follows 
nature  closely,  for  it  follows  the  plan  of  the  ant-hill. 
Every  community  undertakes  to  furnish  for  the  individ- 
uals which  constitute  it  a  certain  amount  of  food,  of 
comforts,  of  luxuries,  of  security,  and  of  pleasure. 
Justice  demands  that  the  race  be  not  exhausted  or 
degenerated  by  the  process  of  obtaining  these,  and, 
above  all,  that  the  necessity  of  procuring  food  be  not 
used  by  a  skilful  few  as  a  means  for  exploiting  the 
many.  It  is  submitted  that  this  demand  of  justice 
would  be  attained  were  the  State  to  set  all  the  citizens 
at  work  according  to  their  best  abilities,  every  citizen 
working  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  during  the 
comparatively  few  hours  that  would  be  required  to 
secure  necessaries  and  ordinary  comforts ;  that  all  should 
share  in  these  necessaries  and  ordinary  comforts  equally; 
and  that  such  a  plan  would  afford  a  large  amount  of 
leisure  which  every  individual  could  apply  to  the  pur- 
suit of  pleasure,  whether  in  the  shape  of  luxury,  or  art, 
or  literature,  or  the  satisfaction  of  individual  aspirations. 
We  shall  later  show  that  such  a  plan  would  secure  the 
greatest  economy  of  production  and  the  greatest  personal 
liberty ;  that  it  would  eliminate  every  economic  occasion 
of  injustice,  and,  by  diminishing  base  motives  of  action 
to  a  minimum  and  relieving  humanity  from  the  exhaus- 
tion which  attends  competition,  advance  the  race  in 
body,  mind,  and  spirit. 

This  aspect  of  collectivism  furnishes  an  opportunity 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  259 

for  disposing  of  one  objection  to  it,  which  is  more  pop- 
ular than  well  founded.  It  is  a  favourite  way  of  dis- 
posing of  collectivism  to  say  that  it  is  a  form  of  society 
fit  only  for  angels  and  not  fit  for  men;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  so  long  as  men  are  human  they  are  not 
fitted  for  a  collectivist  society.  This  objection  would 
be  founded  if,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  collectivism  disre- 
garded the  natural  and  social  needs  of  man;  but  it  is 
not  true  of  the  collectivism  proposed.  The  principal 
natural  needs  of  man  are  food,  clothing,  comfort,  and 
the  satisfaction  of  his  natural  affections.  These  needs 
belong  to  that  natural  part  of  man  which  political  insti- 
tutions cannot  eliminate.  Any  political  scheme  which 
undertook  to  ignore  these  would  be  false.  Far  from 
ignoring  these,  however,  collectivism  seeks  only  to  fur- 
nish to  these  needs  the  highest  form  of  satisfaction.  It 
further  recognises  that  man  not  only  seeks  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  physical  needs,  but  also  of  his  moral  needs ; 
and  that  the  attempt  to  satisfy  physical  without  at  the 
same  time  satisfying  moral  needs  is  bound  to  lead  to  as 
much  unhappiness  as  the  attempt  to  satisfy  moral  needs 
without  regard  to  those  that  are  physical.  Now  the 
system  under  which  we  live  makes  just  this  last  mis- 
take. It  stimulates  men  to  satisfy  their  physical  needs 
at  the  cost  of  cruelty  to  their  neighbour,  and  in  so  doing 
it  keeps  men  not  only  unjust,  but  unhappy;  for  the  un- 
happiness which  a  man  occasions  in  others  tends  to  come 
back  to  him  ultimately  in  some  form  or  other. 

The  collectivist  plan,  on  the  contrary,  recognises  that 
man  has  moral  as  well  as  physical  needs,  and  it  proposes 
to  minister  to  both  by  making  the  interest  of  every  marx 
in  the  satisfaction  of  his  physical  needs  consistent  with 
the  satisfaction  of  those  that  are  moral  also. 

We  shall  remain  all  wrong  about  collectivism  if  we 
imagine  that  it  ignores  the  natural  needs  of  man.     On 


260  COLLECTIVISM 

the  contrary,  it  begins  by  recognising  that  every  man 
is,  and  must  always  be,  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness, and  it  proposes  to  make  that  pursuit  more  suc- 
cessful than  under  the  present  system.  It  proposes  to 
eliminate  from  this  pursuit  to  the  utmost  possible  the 
bitterness  that  attends  not  only  struggle  and  defeat,  but, 
under  the  competitive  system,  success  also.  It  proposes 
to  add  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  the  satisfaction  that 
results  from  benefiting  others  as  well  as  ourselves.  It 
proposes  to  dignify  labour,  so  that  the  more  menial  it 
is,  the  more  beautiful ;  for  it  is  rendered  not  unwillingly 
upon  the  compulsion  of  a  sometime  odious  master,  but 
willingly  as  a  contribution  to  the  general  good. 

Collectivism  takes  all  the  cynicism  out  of  a  doctrine 
against  which  many  rebel  because  they  do  not  under- 
stand it.  I  mean  the  doctrine  that  selfishness  is  inerad- 
icable, and  that,  although  one  form  of  selfishness  may 
be  substituted  for  another,  the  substituted  form  will  be 
selfish,  however  much  it  may  be  higher  in  character. 
For  example,  a  man  who  obeys  a  generous  impulse  and 
gives  alms  to  the  poor  is  declared  by  this  doctrine  to  be 
as  selfish  as  the  man  who  refuses  alms,  because  the  phi- 
lanthropist is  gratifying  himself  in  giving  the  alms  as 
much  as  his  opposite  is  gratifying  himself  in  refusing 
them.  In  one  sense  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  truth 
of  this  statement,  for  we  are  all  seeking  our  gratification 
and  we  are  all  to  this  extent  selfish;  but  one  man  is 
driven  by  his  selfishness  and  the  industrial  environment 
to  the  gratification  of  himself  without  regard  to  others, 
whereas  other  men  are  urged,  in  spite  of  the  artificial 
environment  which  surrounds  them,  to  gratify  them- 
selves by  contributing  to  the  happiness  of  others.  As 
the  selfishness  of  the  former  causes  pain  to  others, 
whereas  that  of  the  latter  causes  benefit  and  happiness 
to  others,  clearly  that  of  the  latter  is  preferable  in  the 


WHAT  IS   COLLECTIVISM?  261 

social  state  to  that  of  the  former.  But  we  are  con- 
fronted under  existing  conditions  with  the  appalling  fact 
that  the  man  who  yields  to  the  impulse  of  charity  and 
gives  alms  to  a  suffering  fellow-creature  is  often  doing 
a  greater  injury  to  the  whole  community  than  the  man 
who,  obeying  another  kind  of  selfishness,  refuses  them. 
In  the  presence  of  such  an  anomalous  condition  as  this 
we  cannot  but  ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  not  possible 
to  imagine  conditions  different  from  those  which  pre- 
vail, and  under  which  the  generous  form  of  selfishness 
may  be  stimulated  rather  than  the  other. 

Now  this  is  practically  what  collectivism  seeks  to  do. 
It  seeks  to  create  conditions  under  which  men  will  be 
benefited  through  the  operation  of  generous  impulses, 
rather  than  through  those  that  are  base. 

But  all  this  discussion  will  seem  vain  to  a  man  who 
is  convinced  that  it  is  impossible  to  frame  a  form  of 
government  which  will  at  the  same  time  recognise  the 
inequality  between  men,  and  also  contrive  so  that  those 
inequalities  shall  not  result  for  men  in  very  different 
degrees  of  happiness. 

Let  me,  then,  at  once  remind  such  a  reader  that  in  the 
chapter  on  Justice  the  possibility  of  altogether  elim- 
inating the  consequences  to  men  of  the  inequalities  which 
characterise  them  has  been  fully  admitted ;  but  it  was 
at  the  same  time  laid  down  that  human  justice  is  a 
struggle  with  these  inequalities,  having  for  its  purpose 
the  reduction  to  the  utmost  possible  of  the  unhappiness 
which  results  therefrom.  It  was  there  recognised  that 
such  inequalities  as  made  one  man  more  or  less  attrac- 
tive than  another  inevitably  tended  to  make  one  man 
more  or  less  happy  than  the  other ;  the  same  is  true  as 
regards  health ;  the  same  is  true  as  regards  intelligence  ; 
the  same  is  true  as  regards  physical  strength.     No  man 


262  COLLECTIVISM 

who  has  enjoyed  the  exercise  of  physical  strength  can 
pretend  that  a  weak  man  is  not  to  that  extent  less  happy 
than  a  strong  man;  no  man  who  has  exercised  the 
faculty  of  intelligence  can  pretend  that  he  is  not  to  that 
extent  a  happier  man  than  an  unintelligent  one.  The 
problem  before  us  is  not  to  obliterate  all  the  conse- 
quences of  inequality,  for  this  we  have  admitted  we  can 
never  do ;  but  what  it  is  possible  to  do  in  the  way  of 
diminishing  the  consequences  of  these  inequalities,  this 
is  what  man,  in  aiming  at  justice,  has  attempted  to  do ; 
this  is  what  our  duty  binds  us  to  do;  this  is  what  re- 
ligion orders  us  to  do ;  and  this  is  what,  by  an  intelligent 
study  of  political  and  economic  science,  man  may  to  a 
great  extent  ultimately  accomplish. 

Recognising,  therefore,  the  limits  which  are  imposed 
upon  us  by  the  inequalities  of  nature  with  which  we 
are  powerless  to  grapple,  but  recognising  at  the  same 
time  the  inequalities  which  we  by  our  unintelligent  in- 
terference with  nature  have  ourselves  created,  it  may  be 
possible  for  us  to  conceive  of  a  system  which  will  at 
any  rate  eliminate  the  inequalities  we  have  ourselves 
added  to  those  of  nature. 

In  proposing  to  abolish  the  principle  of  private  prop- 
erty in  the  sources  of  production,  we  must  be  careful  to 
distinguish  what  we  mean  by  sources  of  jjroduction.  It 
is  not  part  of  the  collectivist  plan  to  deprive  men  of 
property  in  the  things  which  they  themselves  use  for 
their  personal  comfort  and  pleasure;  as,  for  example, 
in  the  things  that  contribute  to  making  a  man's  home 
pleasant  to  him,  —  his  furniture,  his  books,  his  works  of 
art,  his  musical  instruments,  and  other  instruments  of 
pleasure.  It  will  be  seen,  when  we  get  a  completer  idea 
of  the  collectivist  scheme,  that  there  is  no  injury  to 
society  in  a  man's  owning  these  things  and  at  his  death 
passing  them  on  to  his  children. 


WHAT  IS   COLLECTIVISM?  263 

The  essential  feature  of  collectivism  is,  that  it  pre- 
vents any  man  from  making  himself  master  of  the 
sources  of  production  so  as  to  use  this  mastery  for  the 
exploitation  of  other  men.  Everything  which  constitutes 
a  natural  monopoly  is  to  belong  to  the  State.  Land  is 
to  belong  to  the  State,  or  to  be  controlled  by  it,  and  no 
individual  is  by  property  in  land  to  demand  rent  of  a 
fellow-citizen ;  and  as  the  land  belongs  to  the  State,  the 
product  of  land  will  also  belong  to  the  State ;  and  no 
man  is,  by  accumulating  this  product  and  depriving 
others  of  it,  to  put  himself  in  a  position  to  exact  service 
therefor  from  his  fellow-citizens.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  this,  the  State  being  the  owner  of  all  the 
sources  of  production  and  of  the  product  itself,  the  State 
alone  will  be  in  a  position  to  command  and  control  the 
labour  of  the  citizens,  so  far  as  that  labour  is  necessary 
to  the  support  of  the  community. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  next  obvious  objection  to 
socialism  suggested  by  the  word  "State."  Those  born 
and  bred  under  existing  conditions  will  answer  that  the 
State  thus  constituted  sole  proprietor  of  land  and  the 
produce  of  land,  sole  distributer  of  this  produce,  and 
sole  mistress  of  the  labour  of  her  citizens,  will  constitute 
as  despotic  a  power  as  the  world  has  ever  seen ;  that  this 
despotic  power  will  go  into  the  hands  of  the  mob,  which 
will  use  it  for  its  own  advantage,  and  that  no  tyranny 
excels  the  tyranny  of  a  mob. 

Undoubtedly  this  objection  is  one  which  goes  to  the 
very  root  of  the  question ;  and  undoubtedly,  if  the  offi- 
cials of  the  coUectivist  State  are  to  any  degree  to 
resemble  the  officials  of  the  State  in  which  we  live,  and 
if  they  are  to  be  remunerated  as  these  officials  are ;  if 
they  are  to  form  part  of  a  political  machine  at  all 
similar  to  that  which  now  appoints  them ;  and  if,  being 
such  officials  as  those  we  now  have,  they  are  to  enjoy 


264  COLLECTIVISM 

the  power  which  it  is  proposed  to  grant  in  the  collec- 
tivist  State,  —  nothing  can  be  conceived  more  odious  or 
abominable  than  such  a  power  in  such  hands.  And 
this  is  just  where  it  becomes  necessary  that  we  should 
exercise  all  the  power  of  imagination  that  we  have  in 
order  to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  ideas  under  which 
we  are  committed  to  the  view  of  officialism  by  the  con- 
ditions under  which  we  live,  and  under  which  for  thou- 
sands of  years  our  ancestors  have  lived  before  us.  For 
we  have  to  begin  by  eradicating  from  our  minds  the  pic- 
ture which  naturally  suggests  itself  when  we  use  the 
word  "official." 

The  official  under  our  existing  conditions  is  a  man 
who,  driven  by  the  necessity  of  making  his  bread,  has 
offered  himself  for  service  to  the  State.  His  employer 
is  either  the  State  to  which  he  has  to  be  subservient,  as 
in  Prussia,  or  is  a  political  Boss,  as  in  the  United 
States. 

In  the  first  case,  the  official  becomes  part  of  a  system 
under  which  one  class  undertakes  to  govern  the  rest  of 
the  nation,  seeking  its  own  benefit  first,  and  the  benefit 
of  the  governed  only  in  so  far  as  that  benefit  is  secondary 
to  its  own.  In  the  second  case,  he  is  a  part  of  a  machine 
which  is  engaged  in  practically  the  same  work,  except 
that  while  in  the  former  case  the  governing  class  is  more 
or  less  consented  to  by  the  governed,  in  the  case  of  a 
political  machine  the  consent  of  the  governed  class  has 
been  obtained  through  a  sort  of  unconscious  fraud,  and 
in  consequence  of  a  defect  in  the  political  machinery  of 
the  State.  In  both  cases,  however,  the  official  is 
operated  upon  primarily  by  the  motive  of  taking  care  of 
himself,  and  only  secondarily,  if  at  all,  by  the  desire 
to  take  care  of  those  for  whose  benefit  his  office  has 
been  constituted.  Moreover,  the  necessity  of  maintain- 
ing himself  or  securing  advancement  in  office  creates  a 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  265 

subserviency  to  the  power  that  put  him  there,  and  this 
power  is  a  selfish  power  in  both  cases,  and  in  one  is 
generally  corrupt. 

The  point  to  which  attention  must  chiefly  be  directed 
in  considering  the  position  of  an  official  under  our  pres- 
ent system  is  that  the  official  is  always  haunted  by  the 
fear,  not  only  of  losing  advancement,  but  also  of  losing 
with  it  the  increased  facility  advancement  gives  him  of 
making  bread. 

The  official  in  a  collectivist  State  would  occupy  a 
totally  different  position.  He  has  nothing  financially  to 
gain  or  lose  from  the  office  he  occupies ;  his  share  in  the 
national  income  is  exactly  the  same  whether  he  occupies 
the  official  place  or  not.  There  is  therefore  no  haunt- 
ing fear  lest  he  lose  the  place,  nor  is  there  any  subser- 
vience to  a  governing  class  or  to  a  political  machine 
arising  out  of  the  necessity  for  making  bread,  which  is 
the  primary  necessity  of  our  present  system.  In  fact, 
in  a  collectivist  State  every  individual  is  an  official, 
and  thereby  put  on  an  absolute  equality,  so  far  as  oifi- 
cialism  is  concerned,  with  every  other  member  of  it. 
The  man  who  is  growing  corn  is  an  official  of  the  State ; 
the  man  who  is  killing  cattle  is  an  official  of  the  State ; 
the  man  who  is  distributing  dry-goods  is  an  official 
of  the  State;  the  man  who  is  administering  justice  is 
an  official  of  the  State. 

There  may  and  will,  of  course,  be  in  the  collectivist 
State,  as  in  ours,  a  great  difference  between  the  consid- 
eration which  is  attached  to  various  functions  in  the 
State;  and  here  we  have  to  recognise  the  inevitable 
reflection  in  the  State  of  the  natural  inequalities  of  men. 
If  a  man  is  fitted  by  his  physique  for  physical  labour 
and  not  fitted  by  intelligence  for  intellectual  labour,  the 
advantage  of  the  State  is  that  he  should  do  the  physical 
labour  and  leave  the  intellectual  labour  to  the  intelligent ; 


266  COLLECTIVISM 

but  under  our  system  the  man  fitted  by  nature  for  phy- 
sical labour  and  correspondingly  unfitted  for  intellectual 
is  urged  by  the  higher  rewards  given  to  the  latter  to 
seek  the  employment  for  which  he  is  unfitted,  or  to 
destroy  the  system  which  excludes  him  from  it ;  whereas 
under  the  coUectivist  State  the  physically  strong  man 
will  have  no  mercenary  motive  for  trying  to  do  the  work 
of  the  intelligent  man,  nor  will  the  intelligent  man  have 
any  mercenary  motive  for  trying  to  do  the  work  of  his 
physical  superiors.  All  receiving  substantially  the 
same  income  from  the  State,  the  mercenary  motive 
disappears ;  all  being  in  the  service  of  the  State,  many 
of  the  worst  features  of  officialism  disappear. 

To  conceive,  therefore,  of  the  official  under  a  coUec- 
tivist State  as  being  in  any  sense  like  an  official  of  our 
own  State,  is  altogether  to  fail  in  understanding  what 
is  meant  by  collectivism.  Nevertheless,  there  is  no 
doubt  but  that  collectivism  must  be  postponed  until 
selfishness  is  a  less  paramount  factor  in  human  char- 
acter than  to-day,  for  selfishness  has  a  dangerous  influ- 
ence upon  those  occupying  positions  of  authority.  Under 
the  existing  system  the  tendency  of  selfishness  is  to  con- 
vert government  into  an  intolerable  bureaucracy;  for 
those  who  form  part  of  the  governing  body,  being  alive 
to  the  fact  that  their  maintenance  in  power  depends 
considerably  upon  the  docility  of  those  governed,  are 
unconsciously  set  upon  promoting  this  docility.  The 
official  tends  to  put  on  more  and  more  the  language  of 
authority  and  to  exact  from  the  public  more  and  more 
that  of  subservience ;  in  such  a  country  as  Prussia  this 
tendency  is  plainly  visible  on  both  classes.  Prudence 
has  made  the  people  submissive,  and  powei'  has  made 
the  official  intolerable.  In  countries  sucli  as  ours, 
where  popular  institutions  liave  long  prevailed,  this  ten- 
dency is  much  less  observable,  and  in  proportion  as  the 


WHAT  IS   COLLECTIVISM?  267 

people  becomes  more  in  fact  the  controlling  influence, 
it  is  likely  to  give  way  altogether  to  a  more  enlightened 
view,  which  will  put  the  official  more  in  the  position  of 
an  adviser  to  the  public  than  in  that  of  its  master. 

In  the  closing  chapters  of  this  volume  collectivism 
will  be  presented  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  It  may 
be  that  the  importance  of  this  view  has  been  exagger- 
ated. To  those,  however,  who  have  endeavoured  and 
failed  to  reconcile  a  just  life  with  the  inevitable  strug- 
gle for  life  that  characterises  the  competitive  system, 
collectivism  offers  the  only  solution.  If,  then,  collec- 
tivism renders  easy  a  religious  life  that  is  difficult  or 
impossible  under  existing  conditions,  and  if  it  offers  a 
hope  capable  of  inspiring  earnest  people  with  an  abiding 
enthusiasm,  then  it  may  not  be  unreasonable  to  expect 
that  the  official  may  not  only  be  liberated  from  the  mer- 
cenary motive,  but  be  inspired  by  a  faith  and  courage 
that  will  banish  the  perfunctoriness  characteristic  of 
the  present  irreligious  age.  And  if  existing  conditions 
nevertheless  permit  of  so  zealous  and  efficient  a  post- 
office  official  as  Anthony  Trollope,^  what  may  we  not 
hope  of  conditions  that  will  tend  to  bring  to  govern- 
ment service  courage,  hope,  and  conviction? 

It  is  doubtful  whether  our  community  is  ready  yet 
for  a  system  which  would  give  the  officials  that  exercise 
power  a  much  larger  control  over  our  daily  lives  than 
they  now  have.  It  is  probable  that  the  evils  attending 
such  a  system,  if  thrust  upon  us  by  a  revolution  of  the 
working  classes,  would  be  considerable;  for  they  have 
not  learned  to  govern  with  consideration,  and  surely  the 
wealthy  are  not  yet  ready  to  submit  without  resistance. 

But  we  have  seen  that  the  various  functions  of  the 
State  will   differ  much  in  the  character  of  the  labour 

1  See  Anthony  Trollope's  Autobiography. 


268  COLLECTIVISM 

they  involve ;  and  this  suggests  a  new  problem  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  solution  of  a  problem  on  the  other. 

The  problem  it  suggests  is  this:  if  more  labour  is 
involved  in  some  functions  in  the  State  than  in  others, 
how  will  these  functions  be  distributed  without  arous- 
ing discontent? 

As  has  been  already  stated,  collectivists  have  erred 
in  claiming  that  all  causes  of  discontent  will  be  abolished 
by  collectivism ;  for  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  prob- 
ably impossible  so  to  distribute  the  functions  of  a  social 
system  as  to  cause  no  discontent.  These  causes  can, 
however,  be  diminished,  and  the  method  proposed  by 
Rodbertus  is,  slightly  modified,  roughly  as  follows : 

Different  employments  differ  in  hardship  and  in  agree- 
ableness.  It  is  harder  work  to  dig  than  to  sew ;  it  is  less 
agreeable  to  dig  underground  than  above  ground;  to 
stoke  at  the  mouth  of  a  furnace  than  to  hoist  sail  on 
deck.  Under  the  present  system  the  differences  between 
these  kinds  of  employment  are  expressed  in  wages.  The 
navvy  gets  higher  wages  than  the  sewing-girl ;  the  miner 
gets  higher  wages  than  the  navvy;  and  the  stoker  gets 
higher  wages  than  all.  Under  the  collectivist  plan,  this 
method  of  rewarding  a  more  arduous  or  disagreeable 
employment  is  impossible;  it  is  proposed,  therefore,  to 
reward  it  in  time,  —  that  is,  the  more  arduous  and  the 
more  disagreeable  an  employment,  the  less  will  be  the 
time  of  employment;  on  the  other  hand,  the  less  ardu- 
ous and  the  more  agreeable  the  work,  the  longer  will 
be  the  time  of  employment.  If  we  assume  six  hours' 
work  to  be  the  time  which  the  farmer  will  daily  devote 
to  working  in  the  field,  the  miner  will  not  be  called 
upon  to  work  longer  than  three  hours ;  and  if  six  hours 
be  deemed  a  day's  work  for  a  sailor,  three  hours  will  be 
regarded  as  suihcient  work  for  a  stoker;  or,  indeed, 
inasmuch  as  even  three  hours  of  stoking  may  well  be 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  269 

regarded  as  excessive,  it  could  be  arranged  that  sailors 
take  their  turn  at  stoking,  thereby  reducing  the  hours 
of  stoking  for  every  man  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make 
what  is  now  an  occupation  so  odious  that  few  except 
drunkards  can  be  induced  to  engage  in  it,  a  matter  of 
such  short  inconvenience  as  not  to  form  an  important 
feature  in  a  sailor's  life. 

It  may  be  objected  that  one  man's  day's  work  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  another  man's,  or  in  other 
words,  while  one  man  will  show  considerable  results  at 
the  end  of  the  day,  his  neighbour  may  show  very  little. 
This  is  undoubtedly  true ;  but  it  forms  no  objection  to 
the  plan,  because  the  experience  of  trade  unions  has 
shown  that  in  most  trades  piece-work  is  possible  and 
actually  employed;  for  example,  factories  engaged  in 
the  cotton  industry  are  run  on  the  piece-work  plan; 
miners  work  on  the  piece-work  plan.  Out  of  a  total 
trade-union  membership  in  Great  Britain  of  1,003,000, 
more  than  half  —  that  is,  573,000  —  insist  on  piece- 
work; 140,000  use  both  piece-work  and  time-work  in 
various  departments;  only  290,000  insist  on  time-work, 
and  this  not  because  it  would  be  impossible  to  frame  a 
scheme  of  piece-work  for  these  protesting  trade  unions, 
but  because  the  variety  of  the  work  involved  in  these 
trades  makes  collective  bargaining  for  each  variety 
difficult. 

Under  these  circumstances  work  would  be  done  in  a 
collective  State  almost  entirely  on  the  piece-work  plan, 
so  that  those  who  got  through  their  work  with  the  great- 
est rapidity  would  enjoy  the  greatest  amount  of  leisure. 
All  those  who  showed  a  disposition  to  shirk  work  would 
be  put  to  a  piece-work  trade,  and  only  those  who  showed 
willingness  to  work  would  be  put  to  a  trade  in  which 
piece-work  was  impossible. 

Trade-unionism    has   rendered   no   small   service   in 


270  COLLECTIVISM 

demonstrating  the  possibility  of  this  piece-work  system ; 
for  if  it  is  taken  in  connection  with  a  recognition  of  the 
fact  that,  some  employments  being  more  onerous  or  dis- 
agreeable than  others,  a  less  amount  of  time  ought  to  be 
exacted  from  those  engaged  in  the  one  than  from  those 
engaged  in  the  other,  it  is  obvious  that  tasks  could  be  so 
contrived  as  to  permit  of  a  distribution  that  would  be 
approximately  just.  For  it  will  be  possible  under  the 
piece-work  plan  to  permit  those  who  are  able  to  work 
more  expeditiously  than  others  to  secure  for  themselves 
the  advantage  of  their  natural  superiority  without 
thereby  causing  the  slightest  prejudice  to  their  inferiors. 
Again,  —  and  upon  this  point  too  much  emphasis  can- 
not be  placed,  —  a  large  use  of  piece-work  removes  the 
objection  to  collectivism  that,  being  deprived  of  the  spur 
of  self-interest,  work  will  be  done  perfunctorily,  and  the 
economy  occasioned  by  collective  action  more  than  com- 
pensated by  laziness  and  lack  of  zeal.  This  objection 
would  be  a  formidable  one  were  labour  to  be  parcelled 
out  according  to  time ;  but  the  moment  it  is  parcelled 
out  on  the  piece-work  plan  every  worker  has  an  inter- 
est in  getting  through  his  work  with  the  greatest  pos- 
sible despatch.  And  here  is  illustrated  one  of  the 
features  of  collectivism  which  most  advantageously 
contrasts  it  with  the  competitive  system.  Under  the 
competitive  system  the  principal  way  in  which  we  secure 
what  we  want  is  through  the  instrumentality  of  money. 
Do  we  want  consideration?  We  purchase  it  with 
money.  Do  we  want  leisure?  We  purchase  it  with 
money.  Do  we  want  love?  We  even  purchase  love 
with  money;  and,  when  not  purchasable,  we  can  rarely 
without  money  enjoy  it.  Under  collectivism  the  sordid 
element  of  money  is  eliminated.  If  we  want  the  consid- 
eration of  our  fellow-creatures  at  large,  we  must  earn 
it  directly  by  the  service  we  render  them  and  by  the 


WHAT  IS  COLLECTIVISM?  271 

affection  that  prompts  this  service;  if  we  want  to 
marry,  no  want  of  money  need  stand  in  the  way ;  if  we 
want  leisure  and  the  liberty  that  belongs  to  leisure,  we 
must  earn  them  directly  by  the  rapidity  and  efficiency  of 
our  work.  In  other  words,  the  competitive  system  in 
making  money  the  channel  through  which  all  the  good 
things  of  the  world  are  procured  creates  an  environ- 
ment that  favours  the  qualities  of  the  money-maker,  or 
selfishness;  collectivism,  on  the  contrary,  creates  an  en- 
vironment that  favours  the  social  qualities,  or  altruism. 

State  education  will  obviously  furnish  a  classification 
of  youth  according  to  ability,  physical  and  mental,  so 
that  no  individual,  while  at  school  or  after  leaving 
school,  will  be  called  upon  to  do  work  for  which  he  is 
physically  or  mentally  unfit. 

Within  the  limits  imposed  by  this  classification,  there 
ought  to  be  not  only  the  fullest  opportunity  for  choice 
of  tasks  on  the  part  of  individuals,  but  wherever  choice 
cannot  be  exerted,  owing  to  a  large  demand  for  the 
particular  kind  of  occupation  preferred,  the  fullest 
opportunity  for  rotation  ought  to  and  could  exist,  so 
that  no  one  class  of  individual  should  be  subjected  to 
distasteful  occupation  for  a  longer  period  than  another. 

It  is  obvious  that  in  the  drawing  up  of  this  scheme  of 
occupation  there  is  ample  room  for  error  and  injustice. 
There  is  also  ample  room  for  error  and  injustice  in  the 
attribution  of  individuals  to  their  respective  tasks ;  and 
in  the  struggle  of  factions  to  acquire  control  of  the 
political  offices  to  which  is  intrusted  the  duty  to  deter- 
mine these  classes,  and  the  attribution  of  various  indi- 
viduals to  the  tasks  so  classified,  there  is  room  for  much 
of  the  antagonism  which  exists  to-day.  If,  however, 
any  one  will  take  the  trouble  to  read  over  the  schemes  of 
piece-work   which   trade   unions   have  adopted   in  the 


272  COLLECTIVISM 

various  factories  of  England,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
equalisation  of  tasks  is  by  no  means  an  insoluble  prob- 
lem ;  and  it  will  be  also  seen  that  if  rotation  in  tasks  is 
determined  by  lot  within  the  limits  laid  down  by  physi- 
cal and  mental  capacity  as  determined  by  physical  and 
mental  classification,  no  great  injustice  ought  to  obtain. 
But  this  whole  question  of  occupation  and  the  attri- 
bution of  tasks  cannot  be  understood  so  long  as  we 
remain  under  the  impression  that  the  members  of  a  col- 
lectivist  community  will  have  to  labour  as  many  hours 
in  the  day  as  under  our  present  system.  If  this  were  to 
be  the  case,  —  that  is  to  say,  if  we  were  to  have  to  labour 
for  the  State  as  long  as  we  now  have  to  labour  in  order 
to  support  life,  and  if,  in  addition  to  this  necessity,  we 
were  not  to  be  masters  of  the  occupation  to  which  we 
were  put,  but  were,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  in  this  respect 
subject  to  the  dominant  faction  in  the  State,  —  such  a 
condition  of  things  would  indeed  be  in  one  sense  per- 
haps worse  than  the  system  which  prevails  to-day.  If, 
however,  we  examine  the  working  of  a  collectivist  plan, 
we  shall  find  that  the  hours  of  work  which  would  be 
imposed  upon  every  individual  by  the  State  would  be  so 
diminished  that  the  pressure  of  the  State  would  only  be 
felt  during  veiy  few  of  our  waking  hours ;  the  rest  of 
them  would  be  practically  at  our  own  disposal ;  and  as 
this  part  of  the  collectivist  plan  is  an  essential  one,  we 
shall  do  well  to  give  it  special  attention. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  273 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   ECONOMY   OF    COLLECTIVISM! 

Let  us  begin  by  considering  how  large  a  part  of  our 
population  is  now  devoting  its  entire  time  to  the  work 
of  competition,  as  distinguished  from  that  part  of  the 
population  which  is  devoting  its  time  to  the  task  of 
production. 

It  is  obvious  that  all  those  who  are  devoting  their  time 
to  the  work  of  competition  would  be  without  employ- 
ment in  a  collectivist  State ;  they  would  therefore  be 
able  to  give  their  entire  time  to  production ;  and  the 
time  they  gave  to  production  would  be  so  much  taken 
away  from  the  time  which  those  now  engaged  in  pro- 
duction have  to  give  to  it.  For  example,  the  United 
States  to-day  keeps  alive,  according  to  the  last  census, ^ 
about  sixty-five  millions  (65,000,000)  of  men,  women, 
and  children ;  of  these  about  forty-five  millions  are  either 
too  young  to  work,  or  are  unfit  to  work,  or  are  dispensed 
by  sex  or  wealth  from  the  necessity  of  working.  This 
eliminates  children,  women  not  engaged  in  remunerative 
work,  old  people,  criminals,  paupers,  and  the  insane. 
Now  if,  of  the  remaining  twenty  millions  who  do  the 
work  of  production,  it  is  found  that  ten  millions,  or  one- 
half,  are  engaged  in  work  that  results  from  the  compet- 
itive character  of  our  industrial  system,  it  is  clear  that 

^  See,  upon  the  question  of  the  waste  that  attends  the  competitive 
system,  and  the  economy  that  would  result  from  collectivism,  Appendix 
on  Trusts. 

2  Written  in  1898. 

18 


274  COLLECTIVISM 

in  a  collectivist  State  in  which  there  is  no  competition, 
these  ten  millions  would  be  applied  to  the  work  of  pro- 
duction; and  therefore  every  man  would  have  to  work 
only  one-half  the  number  of  hours  he  now  works  in 
order  to  keep  the  community  alive. 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  form  any  idea  how  many  are 
engaged  in  the  wasteful  work  of  competition,  and  how 
many,  therefore,  would  in  a  collectivist  State  be  set  free 
to  relieve  the  labour  of  those  engaged  in  production. 

It  is  estimated  that  out  of  every  one  hundred  men 
who  start  a  new  business  ninety  become  insolvent. 
This  means  that  for  every  ten  who  are  fit  and  able  to 
conduct  a  new  business  ninety  engage  in  new  business 
who  are  unable  to  earn  their  bread  at  it;  and  this  fur- 
nishes in  one  class  of  business  men  a  measure  of  the 
wastefulness  of  the  present  plan.  Under  a  system  of 
collectivism  the  exact  number  of  men  necessary  to  con- 
duct business  in  any  given  place  could  be  mathemati- 
cally determined ;  and  the  ninety  unsuccessful  men  who 
are  now  engaged  in  futile  efforts  to  destroy  the  business 
of  the  ten  successful  men  \vould  be  employed  in  pro- 
duction to  their  own  advantage  and  to  the  relief  of  those 
already  engaged  therein.  The  wastefulness,  however, 
of  the  present  plan  is  not  confined  to  the  fact  that  many 
are  engaged  in  attempting  to  do  what  can  better  be 
done  by  a  few,  but  also  by  the  fact  that  in  the  conflict 
between  the  successful  as  well  as  the  unsuccessful  a  vast 
horde  of  men  are  employed  by  the  mere  fact  of  the  com- 
petition, who  would  be  thrown  out  of  employment  and, 
therefore,  be  serviceable  for  production  in  case  the  ele- 
ment of  competition  were  avoided.  Amongst  the  men 
so  employed  are  commercial  travellers ;  these  men  occa- 
sion waste  to  the  community  not  only  through  the  fact 
that  instead  of  producing  themselves  they  are  living  on 
the  production  of  others,  but  through  the  fact  that  they 


THE   ECONOMY  OF   COLLECTIVISM  275 

constitute  a  large  part  of  the  passenger  traffic  of  the 
country,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  railroads  are  put  to  the 
expense  of  carrying  these  travellers  all  over  the  United 
States  in  order  that  they  may  each  have  an  opportunity 
in  every  corner  of  the  United  States  of  decrying  the 
goods  of  one  another.  And  this  throws  a  side  light  on 
the  evils  of  our  present  plan,  for  the  railroads  have  an 
interest  in  encouraging  this  work;  because  if  they  did 
not  have  this  horde  of  commercial  travellers  to  carry 
about  the  country,  many  of  them  might  not  be  able  to 
pay  interest  on  their  bonds,  whereas,  if  the  railroads 
were  owned  by  a  collectivist  State,  the  less  passengers 
they  had  to  carry,  the  richer  would  be  the  State.  The 
testimony  taken  by  the  Industrial  Commission  furnishes 
admirable  instances  of  the  waste  that  attends  competi- 
tive production  and  the  corresponding  economy  that 
would  attend  a  collectivist  system,  Mr.  Edson  Bradley, 
President  of  the  American  Spirits  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany, testifies  that  in  the  whiskey  business,  "  somewhere 
between  the  distiller  and  the  consumer  in  this  country, 
$40,000,000  is  lost.  This  goes  primarily  to  the  attempt 
to  secure  trade."  He  further  testifies  that  the  whiskey 
combination  had  been  able  to  dispense  with  300  sales- 
men. Mr.  Gates,  President  of  the  American  Steel  and 
Wire  Company,  testified  that  combination  in  this  in- 
dustry had  led  to  the  dismissal  of  200  commercial  trav- 
ellers. Mr.  Dowe,  President  of  the  Commercial 
Travellers'  National  League,  testified  that  "35,000 
salesmen  had  been  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the 
organisation  of  trusts  and  25,000  reduced  to  two-thirds 
of  their  previous  salaries.  .  .  .  The  baking  powder 
trust  has  replaced  men  at  $4,000  to  $5,000  a  year  by 
others  at  $18  a  week.  .  .  .  The  displacement  of  travel- 
ling men  represents  also  large  loss  to  railways,  amount- 
ing, on  the  estimate  that  each  traveller  spends  $2.50  a 


276  COLLECTIVISM 

day  for  240  days,  each  year  to  $27,000,000,  while  the 
loss  to  hotels  would  be  at  least  as  much  as  to  railways. " 
Adding  up  these  losses,  we  reach  the  following  result ; 

35,000  salesmen  at  an  average  compensation  (including 

commissions)  of  $3,000  each  a  year ^105,000,000 

Loss  in  railroad  travelling 27,000,000 

Loss  in  hotel  expenses 27,000,000 

Together $159,000,000 

In  the  few  industries,  therefore,  in  which  competition 
has  been  diminished  by  the  trust  system,  an  economy 
of  $159,000,000  is  estimated  to  have  been  already 
effected.  These  figures  enable  us  to  appreciate  the 
enormous  economy  that  would  result  from  an  elimina- 
tion of  competition  from  every  industry.  It  is  important 
to  note  that  an  economy  that  constitutes  a  loss  to  com- 
mercial travellers,  railroads,  and  hotels  under  the 
competitive  system  would  constitute  a  pure  gain  to  a 
collectivist  community ;  for  it  would  mean  so  much  less 
work  for  railroads  and  hotels  and  so  much  more  labour 
for  production.  Our  present  system,  then,  encourages 
useless  expenditure ;  whereas  collectivism  would  secure 
an  equivalent  economy. 

Another  important  economy  would  be  made,  too,  in 
the  running  of  all  public  enterprises,  through  the  absence 
of  the  necessity  of  collecting  revenue  therefrom.  In 
municipal  tramways,  for  example,  no  less  than  one-half 
the  force  could  be  dispensed  with ;  for  the  functions  of 
the  conductor  are  practically  confined  to  collecting  fares. 
A  similar  economy  would  be  practised  on  railroads ;  in 
telegrams;  no  stamps  would  be  required  for  postage; 
no  costly  corps  of  clerks  for  book-keeping. 

Another  source  of  bootless  expense  to  the  community 
arises  from  advertising.  Mr.  P.  Magnuson,  quoted  by 
Professor  Ely,i  has  estimated  that  five  hundred  million 

1  Socialism  and  Social  Reform,  p.  122. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF   COLLECTIVISM  277 

dollars  a  year  are  spent  in  advertising ;  whereas  the  cost 
of  conveying  the  useful  information  given  by  advertis- 
ing would  not  amount  to  more  than  five  million.  The 
labour  of  all  the  men  and  all  the  wealth  employed  in 
this  work  of  advertising,  estimated  together  at  four 
hundred  and  ninety-five  millions  a  year,  would  be  saved 
in  a  collectivist  State. 

Under  our  system  gas  is  furnished  to  our  cities  by 
gas  companies,  each  one  of  which  tears  up  the  streets  at 
great  detriment  to  public  convenience  and  public  health, 
in  order  to  lay  its  mains  for  the  mere  purpose  of  com- 
peting with  existing  companies,  but  only  with  the  result 
of  forcing  a  consolidation  which  tends  to  make  gas 
dearer  instead  of  cheaper  to  the  consumer.  Professor 
Ely  estimates  that  the  consolidation  of  gas  companies 
in  Baltimore  has  cost  eighteen  millions,  of  which  ten 
millions  represents  pure  loss. 

Very  much  the  same  thing  is  true  of  railroads.  Pro- 
fessor Ely  quotes  a  railroad  manager  who  claims  that  if 
the  railways  of  the  United  States  were  managed  as  a 
unit  instead  of  by  competing  companies,  such  manage- 
ment would  effect  an  economy  of  two  hundred  millions 
of  dollars  a  year;  he  cites,  as  an  instance  of  useless  par- 
alleling of  roads,  the  numerous  railroads  which  connect 
New  York  with  Chicago.  He  estimates  that  these  lines 
cost  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and  that  the 
maintenance  of  the  useless  lines  involves  perpetual  loss. 
He  is  obliged,  however,  to  admit  that  in  this  case  there 
is  a  considerable  accommodation,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  parallel  lines  pass  through  different  places  and  occa- 
sion some  advantage  in  the  time-table.  This,  however, 
is  not  the  case  with  many  other  lines  in  the  United 
States.  The  Colorado  Midland  parallels  the  Denver  and 
Rio  Grande,  passing  through  the  same  places,  and,  in- 
asmuch as  both  are  subjected  to  the  necessity  of  con- 


278  COLLECTIVISM 

necting  and  forwarding  passengers  to  lines  at  their 
extremities,  both  are  obliged  to  run  trains  at  the  same 
hours.  There  is  in  this  case  no  advantage  either  to  the 
time-table  or  to  new  places. 

Nor  does  the  paralleling  and  competition  of  parallel 
roads  always  furnish  better  accommodation  to  the 
public.  Between  Chicago  and  Denver  there  is  one  line 
able  easily  to  run  trains  from  place  to  place  in  twenty- 
four  hours ;  but  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  freight  war 
with  the  competing  lines  it  has  entered  into  an  arrange- 
ment with  the  competing  lines  under  which  it  agrees 
not  to  run  passenger  trains  in  less  than  thirty-six  hours. 
The  public,  therefore,  instead  of  gaining,  loses  an  advan- 
tage of  twelve  hours  by  this  arrangement,  thereby 
learning  at  no  small  inconvenience  that  competition 
does  not  always  compete. 

What  is  true  of  railroads  and  gas  companies  is  also 
true  of  telegraph  business.  The  Western  Union  is 
capitalised  at  one  hundred  million  dollars.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  the  cost  of  laying  the  lines  actually  used  by 
the  Western  Union  would  be  twenty  millions;  eighty 
million  dollars,  therefore,  have  been  wasted  by  the  ex- 
isting system  which  encourages  private  companies  to 
construct  lines  for  the  purpose  or  with  the  result  of 
compelling  other  companies  to  buy  them  up.  Professor 
Ely  adds  that  "it  cost  England  nearly  as  much  to 
make  the  telegraph  a  part  of  the  post-office  as  it  did  all 
the  other  countries  of  Europe  put  together,  because  in 
these  the  telegraph  had  been  from  the  beginning  a  part 
of  the  post-office,  and  the  wastes  of  competition  had 
been  avoided."  ^ 

Another  of  the  most  wasteful  features  attending  our 
present   system  is  the  expense  of   distributing   goods; 

1  "  Socialism  and  Social  Keform,"  p.  120. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  279 

take,  for  example,  the  articles  which  enter  most  into 
our  daily  life,  —  milk,  bread,  butter,  eggs,  meat,  fish, 
and  vegetables,  —  and  compare  the  method  of  distribut- 
ing letters  adopted  by  our  government  in  the  post-ofifice. 
The  fact  that  the  government  is  the  only  instrumen- 
tality through  which  letters  are  distributed  permits  the 
government  to  effect  a  great  economy  in  time,  labour, 
and  expense  by  sorting  the  letters  beforehand  according 
to  streets  and  confining  the  distribution  in  any  one  street 
to  a  single  carrier,  who  distributes  the  letters  with  the 
greatest  economy  of  time  and  labour  door  by  door.  This 
is  the  economical  system  for  distributing  all  things  in 
regular  use  that  would  be  adopted  by  the  collectivist 
plan.  Compare  this  now  with  the  plan  adopted  and 
necessitated  by  the  competitive  system.  Every  block  is 
served  with  milk  by  a  very  large  number  of  milk-dealers 
instead  of  by  one ;  every  block  is  furnished  with  bread 
by  a  very  large  number  of  dealers  instead  of  by  one; 
every  block  is  furnished  with  meat  by  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  dealers  instead  of  by  one;  and  so  on  through 
every  article  which  enters  into  our  daily  use. 

Not  only  is  there  great  waste  of  labour  in  the  business 
of  producing  and  distributing  the  necessaries  of  life 
under  the  competitive  system,  but  the  competitive  sys- 
tem creates  a  large  class  of  business  that  absorbs  much 
of  the  wealth  of  the  community  and  employs  a  very 
large  number  of  its  members.  For  example,  under  a 
collectivist  system  there  would  no  longer  be  any  necessity 
or  advantage  in  insurance,  whether  against  life  or  against 
fire,  or  against  accident,  or  against  hail,  or  against  de- 
fective title,  or  against  any  other  cause.  The  reason  of 
this  is  obvious;  we  insure  ourselves  against  pecuniary 
loss  arising  out  of  these  accidents  because  otherwise  the 
whole  loss  will  fall  upon  ourselves.     In  a  collectivist 


280  COLLECTIVISM 

State  some  of  these  occasions  for  loss  would  not  exist  at 
all,  and  those  that  did  exist  would  fall  upon  the  entire 
State  and  would  consequently  be  inappreciable  by  any 
one  member  of  it.  For  example,  a  man  insures  his  life 
so  that  his  children  should  not  be  reduced  to  poverty  by 
his  death ;  but  in  the  collectivist  State  the  widow  and 
the  child  are  provided  for,  being  all  of  them  members  of 
the  State  and  therefore  all  of  them  sharers  in  its  in- 
come. Death  in  such  a  case  would  practically  not  con- 
stitute a  loss  at  all ;  it  would  rather  constitute  a  gain  to 
the  State  financially,  because  the  number  of  deaths  of 
the  very  old  and  the  very  young  —  and  therefore  of  the 
unproductive  members  of  the  community  —  is  known  to 
be  far  greater  than  that  of  its  productive  members. 
We  can  to  a  certain  extent  measure  the  economy  that 
would  result  to  the  State  from  an  elimination  of  insur- 
ance by  a  reference  to  the  insurance  reports  of  the  State 
of  New  York  and  to  the  amount  of  capital  invested 
therein.^  The  capital  invested  in  life  and  casualty 
insurance  companies  alone  doing  business  in  the  State 
of  New  York  is  $1,334,051,344,2  —  q^qj.  q^c  thousand 
three  hundred  and  thirty-four  millions  of  dollars;  it 
increased  during  the  single  year  of  1897,  $105,727,002; 
so  that,  assuming  that  an  average  workingman  earns 
$2.00  a  day,  over  fifty-two  million  working  days  were 
wasted  in  life  and  casualty  insurance  alone  in  a  single 
year ;  or,  taking  three  hundred  and  thirty  days  to  repre- 
sent the  working  days  in  a  year,  the  whole  labour  of 
over  157,500  men  was  lost  to  the  nation  in  1897 
through  the  wasteful  necessity  of  life  and  casualty  insur- 
ance alone.  And  to  this  must  be  added  the  time  de- 
voted to  life  insurance  during  the  year  of  all  the  oificers, 

^  Capital  is  taken  as  the  measure  becavise  it  represents  the  accumu- 
Lation  of  premiums  paid  for  tlie  benefit  of  insurance. 

'  Report  of  State  Superintendent  of  Insurance  of  the  State  of  New 
York  for  1897. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  281 

actuaries,  book-keepers,  clerks,  and  the  host  of  agents 
who  have  become  proverbial  for  the  extent  to  which 
they  worry  and  annoy  us. 

Another  kind  of  business  that  would  be  eliminated  in 
a  collectivist  State  is  the  class  of  brokers ;  not  only  Wall 
Street  brokers,  but  real-estate  brokers,  mining  brokers, 
and  brokers  of  every  description,  in  so  far  as  they  are 
engaged  in  competition.  The  abolition  of  Wall  Street 
would  carry  with  it  the  abolition  of  gambling  in  stocks 
which  is  a  necessary  feature  thereof.  No  law  has  yet 
been  devised,  though  the  attempt  has  often  been  made, 
that  would,  so  long  as  the  competitive  system  endures, 
put  a  stop  to  gambling  in  stocks.  A  law  which  would 
successfully  stop  gambling  in  stocks  would  stop  legiti- 
mate dealing  in  stocks  also.  But  the  immoral  element 
involved  in  "puts  "  and  "calls  "  is  only  an  exaggeration 
of  the  immoral  element  involved  in  all  industrial  trans- 
actions built  upon  the  principle  of  private  profit;  for 
although  business  can  be  conducted  in  such  a  way  as 
only  to  furnish  to  those  engaged  in  it  a  fair  remunera- 
tion for  time  involved  therein,  it  perpetually  furnishes 
a  temptation  to  those  involved  therein  to  contrive  so  that 
it  shall  furnish  a  large  rather  than  a  fair  return.  In 
fact,  the  whole  struggle  of  business  consists  in  endeav- 
ouring to  secure  tlie  largest  return  of  profit  for  the  least 
expenditure  of  labour.  The  man  who  succeeds  in  get- 
ting the  largest  return  for  the  least  expenditure  is  the 
successful  business  man;  and  no  man  does  this  with 
more  security  than  the  next  class  to  which  attention 
may  be  called,  whose  occupation  would  come  to  an  end 
in  the  collectivist  State ;  namely,  the  banker. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  enter  here  into  an  accurate 
and  fair  estimate  of  the  service  rendered  by  the  banker 
and  the  reward  he  obtains  for  it.  Most  writers  who 
favour  socialism  undervalue  the  functions  of  the  banker. 


282  COLLECTIVISM 

They  are  so  impressed  by  the  enormous  incomes  which 
bankers  make  that  they  do  not  appreciate  the  enormous 
services  they  render;  and  although  in  a  collectivist 
State  the  banker  qua  banker  would  tend  to  disappear, 
the  man  who  to-day  does  the  work  of  a  banker  would,  it 
is  hoped,  do  the  same  work  for  the  State.  So  that  al- 
though the  business  of  banking  would  disappear,  the 
best  form  of  government  would  be  the  one  in  which  the 
individuals  who  have  been  discovered  to  be  best  fitted 
for  the  onerous  and  difficult  duties  of  finance  would  be 
those  to  whom  this  duty  would  be  intrusted.  Whether, 
as  matter  of  fact,  the  man  best  fitted  to  do  this  difficult 
work  would  be  intrusted  with  it  under  the  collectivist 
plan  is  an  objection  to  collectivism  which  will  be  con- 
sidered later. 

But  there  is  another  large  class  of  intelligent  men 
who  are  now  engaged  in  fighting  the  quarrels  which  re- 
sult from  the  competitive  system  who  would  be  left  with- 
out an  occupation  under  the  collectivist  plan;  namely, 
the  lawyers.  With  them,  the  hatred  and  vindictiveness 
which  arise  from  litigation  would  in  a  collectivist  State 
in  great  part  disappear  also ;  for  lawyers  constitute  the 
class  whose  business  it  is  to  conduct  these  quarrels, 
and,  alas!  also  to  inflame  them.  When  we  take  into 
consideration  the  fact  that  in  the  city  of  New  York  alone 
there  are  nearly  ten  thousand  practising  lawyers,  and 
when  we  add  to  these  the  clerks,  stenographers,  book- 
keepers, and  office-boys  employed  by  each  of  these  ten 
thousand  lawyers,  those  employed  in  the  courts,  the 
sheriff's  office,  the  county  clerk's  office,  marshals, 
dejjuty  sheriffs,  and  others;  and  when  we  take  into 
account  that  most  of  these  men  are  engaged  in  the  busi- 
ness of  fighting,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the  enor- 
mous advantage  to  the  community  of  a  system  which 
would  practically  eliminate  this  class  altogether. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  283 

It  must  not  be  understood  to  mean,   however,    that 
there  would  be  no  necessity  for  courts  under  the  collec- 
tivist  plan.     Even  though  crimes  against  property  were 
eliminated  by  collectivism,  there  would  still  be  a  temp- 
tation to  commit  crime,  owing  to  sexual  jealousy  and  in 
a  certain  degree  to  intemperance  and    idleness.     It  is 
believed  that  both  intemperance  and  idleness  would  tend 
to  diminish  with  the  disappearance  of  the  misery  that 
reduces  men  to  the  physical  condition  that  engenders 
them;  but  there  would  still,  doubtless,  be  some  intem- 
perance and  some  idleness ;  there  would  certainly  remain 
unhappy  marriages ;  and  as  every  man  is  to  remain  pos- 
sessed of  a  small  amount  of   property  there  would  be 
minute  questions  of  property  sometimes  involved.     But 
it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  such  questions  could  involve 
any  system  of  justice  more  elaborate  than  that  of  the 
justice  of   the    peace    and   possibly   a   single    court  of 
appeal.     The  absence  of  competition  would  so  simplify 
the  law  that  no  question  would  be  likely  to  arise  that 
the  parties  to  the  litigation  could  not  themselves  ex- 
plain.    How  little   litigation  would   be  likely  under  a 
collectivist  regime  may  be  judged  by  comparing  the  liti- 
gation to  which  the  administration  of   the  Post-Office 
gives  rise  with  the  interminable  lawsuits  which  result 
from  the  administration  of  railroads. ^     Moreover,  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  in  a  collectivist  State  the  community 
would  at  last  have   leisure  to   study  criminology   and 
learn  to  understand  that  the  criminal  has  to  be  treated 
as  a  sick  man  rather  than  as  a  wicked  one.     The  whole 
system  of  criminal  procedure  would  be  changed,  and  the 
type  now  known  as  the  criminal  lawyer  would  in  such 
case  disappear.    The  existing  system,  under  which  every 

^  This  is  undoubtedly  more  true  of  railroads  in  the  United  States  than 
in  England,  probably  because  competing  roads  have  not  been  tolerated  in. 
England  to  the  same  extent  as  in  our  country. 


284  COLLECTIVISM 

prosecuting  officer  considers  his  reputation  involved  in 
securing  the  punishment  of  every  criminal  brought  before 
the  court,  necessarily  gives  rise  to  a  corresponding 
class  of  lawyer  who  regards  his  reputation  as  well  as  his 
fee  involved  in  opposing  the  efforts  of  the  prosecuting 
officer  by  any  means,  however  unjustifiable. 

If,  now,  we  consider  that  the  large  number  of  men 
thus  liberated  by  the  substitution  of  collectivism  for 
our  present  form  of  government  would  not  only  be 
employed  to  diminish  the  labour  of  those  now  engaged 
in  production,  but  that  it  constitutes  the  very  part  of 
our  population  which  is  engaged  in  fanning  the  flame  of 
hatred  in  the  minds  of  men,  the  advantage  to  a  com- 
munity of  having  this  perpetual  source  of  trouble  re- 
moved will  be  obvious.  But  we  are  not  concerned  so 
much  now  with  the  reduction  of  hatred  under  the  col- 
lectivist  plan  as  we  are  with  its  economy.  We  shall 
therefore  next  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  waste- 
fulness involved  in  the  field  of  production  itself,  hav- 
ing heretofore  considered  rather  the  wastefulness  which 
attends  our  present  system  of  distribution. 

At  the  present  time  horses  in  the  West  have  become 
so  valueless  that  they  are  left  unbranded  by  their  owners, 
lest  the  branding  of  them  involve  the  payment  of  taxes 
thereupon.  Cattle,  on  the  other  hand,  have  of  late  risen 
in  value ;  the  price  of  them  fell  so  low  some  time  ago  as 
to  involve  the  ruin  of  all  those  largely  engaged  in  them ; 
but  to-day  every  one  is  rushing  back  into  this  business. 
This  state  of  things  furnishes  a  very  fair  opportunity 
of  judging  how  imperfectly  informed  the  producer  is  as 
to  the  needs  of  the  community.  In  other  words,  he  is 
only  informed  that  the  community  is  overstocked  with  an 
article  hy  being  ruined  in  the  course  of  producing  it.  This 
plan  is  not  only  productive  of  misery  to  a  large  number 
of  individuals  in  every  community,  but  it  is  necessarily 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  285 

an  extremely  wasteful  one.  The  object  of  every  com- 
munity ought  to  be  to  produce  the  things  it  needs,  not 
the  things  it  does  not  need.  The  present  system,  on 
the  contrary,  obliges  the  community  to  be  continually 
producing  the  things  it  does  not  need  as  the  only 
means  by  which  it  can  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  what 
it  does  need.^ 

For  under  the  existing  system,  over-production  occa- 
sions a  surplusage  of  things  in  themselves  valuable,  but 
the  exchange  value  of  which  has  been  diminished  by 
their  abundance.  And  the  producer  cannot  afford  to 
keep  this  surplusage,  because  he  has  fixed  charges  to 
pay.  He  has  to  sell  his  crop  at  a  loss  because  he  must 
have  money  to  pay  rent,  or  interest  on  mortgage,  or 
salaries,  or  for  his  own  support  during  the  year.  It  is 
this  pressure  he  is  under  to  sell  which  impoverishes 
him.  And  its  consequences  are  far-reaching;  for  as 
the  price  of  raw  cotton  goes  down,  cotton  manufacturers 
are  encouraged  to  buy  and  to  increase   the   output  of 

1  And  yet  Herbert  Spencer  does  not  hesitate  to  lavish  encomiums  on 
the  present  system  ;  for  example,  he  says  in  "  A  Plea  for  Liberty,"  p.  17  : 
"  Under  our  existing  voluntary  co-operation  with  its  free  contracts  and 
its  competition,  production  and  distribution  need  no  official  oversight. 
Demand  and  supply  and  the  desire  of  each  man  to  gain  a  living  by  sup- 
plying the  needs  of  his  fellows  spontaneously  evolve  that  wonderful  sys- 
tem whereby  a  great  city  has  its  food  daily  brought  round  to  all  doors 
or  stored  at  adjacent  shops  ;  has  clothing  for  its  citizens  everywhere  at 
hand  in  multitudinous  varieties  ;  has  its  houses  and  furniture  and  fuel 
ready  made  or  stocked  in  each  locality  ;  and  has  mental  pabulum  from 
halfpenny  papers,  hourly  hawked  around,  to  weekly  shoals  of  novels 
and  less  abundant  books  of  instruction,  furnished  without  stint  for  small 
payments.  And  throughout  the  kingdom,  production  as  well  as  distri- 
bution is  similarly  carried  on  with  the  smallest  amount  of  superintendence 
which  proves  efficient  ;  while  the  quantities  of  the  numerous  commodities 
required  daily  in  each  locality  are  adjusted  without  any  other  agency 
than  the  pursuit  of  proiit." 

To  him  and  to  all  individualists  the  agony  caused  by  the  failure  to 
make  profit  which  attends  ninety  per  cent  of  all  new  business  ventures 
is  a  matter  of  no  importance. 


286  COLLECTIVISM 

their  factories ;  and  so  over-production  of  raw  material 
tends  to  result  in  over-production  of  manufactured 
goods. 

In  a  collect! vist  State  the  industry  or  good  harvest  of 
one  year  would  have  for  effect  a  diminution  of  labour 
the  next ;  or  greater  comfort  or  luxury  next  year  for  the 
same  labour;  no  man's  labour  would  be  lost,  and  the 
bountifulness  of  Nature  would  be  a  blessing  and  not,  as 
now,  a  misfortune. 

The  efforts  to  prevent  the  over-production  of  cotton 
in  the  South  gave  rise  to  a  convention  in  1892,  regard- 
ing which  Professor  Ely  quotes  a  telegram  from  Mem- 
phis, January  8,  as  follows :  — 

"  That  the  farmers  of  the  South  are  in  earnest  in  their 
endeavours  to  solve  the  serious  problem  of  over-production 
of  cotton  is  evinced  by  the  enthusiastic  meeting  of  dele- 
gates to  the  convention  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  Cotton- 
Growers'  Association,  which  was  called  to  order  in  this 
city  this  morning."  ^ 

And  again  the  speech  of  the  President  of  the  Boston 
Chamber  of  Commerce :  — ■ 

"In  1890  we  harvested  a  cotton  crop  of  over  eight 
million  bales,  —  several  hundred  thousand  bales  more  than 
the  world  could  consume.  Had  the  crop  of  the  present 
year  been  equally  large,  it  would  have  been  an  appall- 
ing calamity  to  the  section  of  our  country  that  devotes  so 
large  a  portion  of  its  labour  and  capital  to  the  raising  of 
cotton."  2 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  evil  of  our  present 
system  and  the  benefits  of  a  system  of  collectivism  than 
such  a  state  of  things  as  is  described  by  the  President 
of  the  Boston  Chamber  of  Commerce.     If,  under  a  collec- 

1  Ely's  "  Socialism  and  Social  Reform,"  p.  134.  2  /j^ 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  287 

tivist  State,  more  bales  of  cotton  were  produced  m  any 
given  year  than  the  community  of  the  world  could  con- 
sume, the  State  would  store  away  the  unused  cotton  and 
would  modify  its  agriculture  in  a  manner  to  bring  the 
cotton  crop  into  proper  relation  to  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity. But  such  an  event  could  not  be  an  "  appalling 
calamity;"  it  could  not  be  anything  but  a  benefit;  so 
much  more  wealth  for  the  community;  so  much  less 
labour  for  its  citizens;  and  what  is  true  of  the  cotton 
crop  is  equally  true  of  all  other  crops.  Over-produc- 
tion is  impossible  in  a  collectivist  community,  for  all 
the  over-production  of  one  year  would  mean  less  work 
in  that  particular  kind  of  production  the  next.  Every 
citizen  in  the  community  would  profit  by  so-called 
over-production  instead  of,  as  now,  suffering  from  it. 

This  question  of  over-production  is  closely  allied  to 
that  of  invention,  which,  as  is  well  known,  has  been  a 
source  of  despair  to  workingmen;  for  improvements  in 
machinery  almost  always  throw  large  numbers  of  them 
out  of  employment.  In  India,  as  has  already  been  de- 
scribed, the  destruction  of  hand-loom  weavers  by  ma- 
chinery brought  about  a  misery  hardly  paralleled  in  the 
history  of  war:  "the  bones  of  the  cotton-weavers  are 
bleaching  the  plains  of  India."  And  yet  invention, 
far  from  bringing  distress  to  the  workingmen,  as  under 
our  system  it  must,  would,  under  a  collectivist  State, 
prove  an  unqualified  advantage;  for  every  invention 
that  increases  the  eiBciency  of  human  labour  diminishes 
the  amount  of  time  that  must  be  spent  in  labour  in  order 
to  obtain  the  same  result.  In  other  words,  in  a  collec- 
tivist State  the  saving  of  labour  is  a  benefit  to  every 
individual  in  the  community,  whereas  under  the  com- 
petitive system  the  saving  of  labour  is  of  immediate 
benefit  to  the  owner  of  the  patent  alone,  and  means 
immediate  distress  to  the  labourers  it  particularly  affects. 


288  COLLECTIVISM 

One  of  the  standard  objections  to  collectivism  in  this 
connection  is  that  a  coUectivist  form  of  government 
would  remove  all  stimulus  to  invention.  This  is  be- 
lieved to  be  a  profound  mistake. 

In  the  first  place,  inventors  are  not  always  urged  to 
invention  by  the  prospect  of  financial  reward.  The 
great  discoveries  of  humanity  which  are  at  the  basis 
of  all  our  practical  advances  were  made  by  men  who 
neither  sought  nor  obtained  a  reward  therefor.  It  was 
not  with  the  view  of  making  money  that  Newton  dis- 
covered and  propounded  the  laws  of  gravity,  or  Ohm 
the  laws  of  electrical  resistance.  Nor  do  inventors 
to-day,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  reap  the  reward  of  their  in- 
ventions. Capitalists  often  have  an  interest  in  suppress- 
ing inventions;  for  inventions  generally  involve  the 
expensive  transformation  of  existing  plants.  For  ex- 
ample, Mr.  Babbage  ^  describes  how  a  patent  for  welding 
gun -barrels  by  machinery  had  long  been  unused  because 
of  the  cheapness  of  hand  labour ;  but  as  soon  as  a  strike 
forced  up  wages  recourse  was  had  to  the  patent,  which 
until  then  had  been  neglected. 

Capitalists  often  prefer  to  dispense  with  an  improve- 
ment rather  than  go  to  the  expense  which  improvements 
generally  occasion.  This  was  the  unwritten  motive  for 
the  opposition  of  England  to  the  construction  of  the 
Suez  Canal,  and  was  believed  by  Mr.  De  Lesseps  to  be 
the  motive  of  their  opposition  to  the  Panama  Canal.  ^ 
Again,  no  one  who  has  had  personal  acquaintance  with 
inventors  can  believe  that  their  discoveries  are  to  any 
material  extent  the  result  of  financial  motive.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  the  conditions  under  which  Edi- 

1  "Economy  of  Manufactures."     Babbage  (London,  1832),  p.  246. 

2  Mr.  De  Lesseps  has  stated  that  it  cost  EngLaiid  £100,000,000  to 
cliange  its  .shipping  so  as  to  fit  it  for  passage  through  the  Suez  Canal ; 
and  this  expense  applies  more  or  less  to  change  of  machinery  due  to  in- 
vention in  every  factory. 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  289 

son  and  Maxim  would  not  invent.  They  cannot  help 
inventing ;  they  are  as  much  under  a  necessity  to  invent 
as  a  hen  to  lay  eggs.  Undoubtedly  there  are  certain 
environments  which  favour  the  production  and  utilisa- 
tion of  inventing  types,  and  others  that  disfavour  the 
production  and  utilisation  of  such  types.  And  undoubt- 
edly a  motive  for  invention  is  a  part  of  the  environment 
which  does  contribute  to  invention ;  but  would  such  a 
motive  be  wanting  in  a  collectivist  State  ?  I  think  it 
can  be  shown  that  it  would  not  only  be  present,  but  that 
it  would  be  a  stronger  motive  in  the  collectivist  State 
than  in  our  own ;  for  under  our  own  the  reward  which 
an  inventor  receives  for  an  invention  is  a  patent,  and  a 
patent  is,  as  all  lawyers  will  testify,  merely  a  subject  for 
litigation.  In  other  words,  every  man  who  invents  a 
useful  thing  has  to  overcome  first  the  objections  of  the 
patent  office ;  secondly,  the  objections  of  the  capitalists ; 
and  thirdly,  the  objections  of  infringers;  all  three  of 
which  mean  obstacles  of  no  small  order.  And  not  until 
they  are  all  overcome,  if  indeed  they  any  of  them  are,  is 
the  patent  likely  to  be  a  source  of  income  to  the  inven- 
tor. Under  the  collectivist  State,  however,  every  man 
is  interested  in  increasing  the  productiveness  of  the  State 
so  as  to  diminish  hours  of  labour;  and  nothing,  more- 
over, would  be  easier  than  for  a  collectivist  State  excep- 
tionally to  reward  invention  by  diminishing  the  hours  of 
labour  due  by  the  inventor  to  the  State. 

From  one  point  of  view,  therefore,  it  seems  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  invention  would  prove  more  benefi- 
cial to  the  collectivist  State  than  to  our  own,  that  a 
more  immediately  advantageous  motive  could  be  given 
for  invention  in  such  a  State,  and  that  much  fewer  and 
lesser  obstacles  would  be  presented  to  the  utilisation 
of  such  inventions. 

Moreover,  as  Professor  Ely  has  pointed  out,  the  ten- 

19 


290  COLLECTIVISM 

dency  of  invention  in  a  collectivist  State  would  be  to 
replace  work  which  now  involves  drudgery  by  a  ma- 
chinery that  would  tend  to  lessen  or  eliminate  it.  His 
words  on  this  subject  are  interesting  enough  to  deserve 
quotation :  — 

"An  advertisement  (of  what  is  technically  called  the 
before-and-after  kind)  which  attracted  the  author's  at- 
tention some  time  since  is  significant.  It  was  simply  an 
advertisement  of  a  mop  ;  but  as  a  naturalist  can  construct 
from  a  single  bone  a  likeness  of  an  extinct  animal,  so  a  so- 
ciologist, sufficiently  skilful,  could  tell  us  a  good  deal  about 
the  kind  of  society  in  which  this  advertisement  appeared. 
The  advertisement  gave  two  pictures,  —  one  of  an  ordinary 
mop,  out  of  which  the  water  was  wrung  by  a  bedrabbled, 
sorry-looking  maid,  and  the  other  of  a  smiling,  comely 
housewife,  who  was  wringing  the  dirty  water  out  of  the 
mop  by  simply  turning  the  handle.  This  method  of  ex- 
tracting the  dirty  water  without  soiling  one's  hands  was  the 
essential  feature  of  the  patented  mop.  Now,  of  course  the 
author  knows  nothing  about  the  merits  of  this  mop,  but  he 
claims  that  the  advertisement  itself  of  the  alleged  improve- 
ment signifies  a  great  deal.  It  is  significant  that  the  adver- 
tisement appeared  in  the  United  States,  where  women's 
wages  are  high  and  many  women  of  respectability  do  their 
own  housework,  and  not  in  Germany,  where  labour  is  cheap 
and  servants  abundant.  It  is  significant  that  improvements 
of  this  kind  should  be  more  abundant  in  the  North  than  in 
the  South.  Equally  significant  is  the  undoubted  fact  that 
the  tools  used  by  the  slaves  in  the  South  were  of  an  inferior 
kind.  The  Northern  farmer,  who  hoed  his  own  Indian  corn, 
used  a  beautifully  constructed  hoe,  weighing  a  few  ounces, 
and  despised  the  heavy  and  clumsy  tool  used  by  the  South- 
ern slave  in  the  field.  Equally  significant  is  the  fact  that 
when  it  was  made  illegal  to  send  chimney-sweeps  down 
chimneys  in  England,  the  chimneys  were  still  swept,  but 


THE  ECONOMY  OF  COLLECTIVISM  291 

by  improved  tools,  and  not  by  boys  in  the  chimneys  them- 
selves." ^ 

"  The  author  spent  some  time  among  the  Shakers  at  Mount 
Lebanon,  New  York,  and  was  much  pleased  to  see  the  im- 
provements which  had  been  introduced  in  the  kitchen,  ren- 
dering kitchen  work  so  agreeable  that  the  sisters  preferred 
it  to  any  other  occupation.  One  thing  which  he  remembers 
is  that  the  soiled  clothes  were  washed  by  the  aid  of  water- 
power.  Now,  what  did  all  these  unusual  improvements  in 
the  kitchen  signify,  except  that  the  community  of  interests 
resulted  in  the  devotion  of  a  larger  proportion  than  usual 
of  the  inventive  talent  and  energy  of  this  social  group  to 
occupations  ordinarily  termed  menial  ?  " 

If  it  were  conceivable  that  a  law  could  be  made  or 
enforced  requiring  that  millionaires,  and  none  but  mil- 
lionaires, were  to  serve  as  stokers,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  all  the  ingenuity  in  the  land  would  at  once  be  put 
to  making  the  work  of  stoking  less  detestable  than  it 
now  is;  if  necessary,  naval  architecture  would  be  re- 
formed from  top  to  bottom,  so  as  to  reduce  the  work  of 
stoking  to  that  pressure  of  a  finger  upon  a  button  which 
is  the  only  physical  work  that  is  imposed  by  modern 
conditions  upon  the  millionaire  to-day. 

The  improvements  due  to  invention  would  differ,  per- 
haps, in  character  but  not  in  quantity,  for  invention 
obeys  the  particular  stimulus  which  gives  rise  to  it. 
Thus  Karl  Marx  points  out^  that  mechanical  traction 
was  not  introduced  into  mines  until  a  law  forbade  the 
use  of  women  and  children  there,  and  the  "half-time 
system  stimulated  the  invention  of  the  piecing-machine, " 
thereby  replacing  child  labour  in  woollen-yarn  manufac- 
ture.    Again,  immense  improvements  have  been  made 

1  This  last  illustration  is  given  by  Mrs.  Annie  Besant  in  the  Fabian 
Essays. 

2  Capital,  Part  LV.  chap.  xv. 


292  COLLECTIVISM 

in  the  charging  and  drawing  of  gas  retorts,  owing  to 
labour  troubles,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  arduous 
work  would  soon  be  made  less  arduous  if  we  all  had  to 
take  a  turn  at  it. 

The  standard  objection  against  the  economy  of  col- 
lectivism is  that  government  is  to-day  much  less  econom- 
ical in  its  administration  than  private  enterprise,  and 
the  cost  of  ships  built  by  the  admiralty  is  compared  in 
this  connection  with  that  of  ships  built  in  private  yards. 
It  may  be  admitted  that  the  government  does  not  to-day 
administer  as  cheaply  as  competitive  enterprises  without 
for  that  reason  yielding  the  superior  economy  of  govern- 
ment administration  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale.  In 
order  to  establish  a  proper  comparison  between  collective 
and  competitive  administration,  a  contrast  must  not  be 
made  between  government  and  private  ship-building, 
for  in  this  particular  industry  the  special  economies  of 
collective  administration  do  not  enter.  A  more  enlight- 
ening contrast  would  be  that  between  the  transportation 
and  delivery  of  letters  by  the  government,  and  their 
transportation  and  delivery  by  as  many  private  individ- 
uals as  chose  to  compete  in  the  business.  The  advan- 
tage of  the  government  system  over  the  competitive 
system  is  too  obvious  to  need  comment.  It  is  the  ap- 
plication of  the  post-office  plan  to  all  transportation 
and  to  the  delivery  of  all  necessaries  that  constitutes  the 
special  feature  and  special  economy  of  collectivism. 

Again,  the  present  official  cannot  fairly  be  compared 
with  the  official  in  a  collectivist  form  of  government. 
Religion,  religious  sense  of  duty,  above  all,  religious 
enthusiasm,  cannot  be  said  to  prevail  largely  in  govern- 
ment official  life.  They  ought  to  and  could  be  the 
priniuTn  mobile  of  a  collectivist  administration.  But 
this  needs  time. 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  293 


CHAPTER   III 

SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM 

It  would  seem,  then,  from  the  foregoing  consideration, 
that  from  a  collectivist  form  of  government  great  econ- 
omy would  result.  Many  socialists  believe  that  it  would 
reduce  the  necessary  amount  of  labour  to  be  performed 
by  every  individual  to  three  hours  a  day.  The  probabil- 
ities are  that  although  some  occupations  —  such  as  farm- 
ing —  which  are  attractive  would  involve  the  expenditure 
of  more  than  three  hours  a  day ;  others,  such  as  mining, 
might  not  require  labour  of  as  much  as  three  hours  a 
day.  One  thing,  however,  is  certain;  the  number  of 
hours  which  every  man  would  have  to  work  per  day 
would  be  largely  diminished.  The  amount  of  leisure, 
therefore,  that  he  would  enjoy  would  be  largely 
increased. 

The  importance  of  the  diminution  of  hours  of  labour 
has  been  already  pointed  out  in  the  discussion  of  the 
feasibility  of  collectivism;  for  if  what  individualists 
call  the  tyranny  of  the  collectivist  State  is  to  operate  on 
the  individual  only  during  a  comparatively  small  part  of 
each  day,  the  so-called  tyranny  —  if  tyranny  it  be  —  may 
well  be  endured  during  these  few  hours  in  view  of  the 
benefits  to  the  mass  which  such  a  system  would  confer. 

But  a  thorough  examination  of  the  collectivist  plan 
will  serve  to  diminish  still  more  the  number  of  hours' 
work  which  an  intelligent  collectivist  State  would 
be  obliged  to  exact  from  every  individual.     In  order  to 


294  COLLECTIVISM 

make  this  more  thorough  examination  into  the  coUec- 
tivist  State,  it  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  consider  for  a 
moment  the  groups  of  citizens  which  such  a  State  would 
have  to  take  account  of,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  groups  into 
which  mankind  inevitably  falls  by  nature. 

§  1.  Paupekism  and  Crime 

The  problem  of  pauperism  will  confront  us  under  the 
collectivist  State  just  as  certainly  as  under  the  competi- 
tive system.  There  will  always,  under  every  condition, 
be  a  fraction  of  the  population  unable  to  contribute  its 
share  of  effective  service  to  the  commonwealth.  This 
will  take  the  shape  then,  as  now,  of  unwillingness  to 
work ;  unwillingness  to  work  being  then,  as  now,  mainly 
due  to  incapacity  to  work.  This  part  of  the  population 
will  have  to  be  treated  with  more  intelligence  than  it 
is  now  treated,  or  it  will  prove  a  source  of  danger  in 
the  State.  The  very  fact  that  we  do  not  now  treat  this 
fraction  of  the  population  as  we  ought  is  an  indication 
of  the  extent  to  which  ignorance  prevails,  and  of  our 
present  unfitness  for  a  collectivist  form  of  government. 
This  ignorance  is  one  of  sentiment  as  well  as  of  intelli- 
gence. Sentimental  people  will  not  recognise  that  a 
pauper  is  just  as  much  in  need  of  training  as  a  criminal. 
The  training  is  of  a  different  character,  but  it  is  none 
the  less  training.  A  pauper  is  generally  a  person  whose 
physical  vitality  is  below  par.  He  is  instinctively  lazy 
because  his  physical  strength  is  deficient  in  the  vitality 
which  enables  him  to  decide  upon  working.  To  this 
deficiency  Professor  Marshall,  in  his  Economics,  refers 
as  constituting  perhaps  one  of  the  most  important  differ- 
ences between  men.  One  man  is  always  ready  to  go  to 
work ;  another  man  gets  to  work  with  so  much  reluct- 
ance that  whenever  his  work  is  interrupted  it  requires  a 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  295 

painful  effort  to  return  to  it.  This  effort  is  an  indica- 
tion of  weakness  of  nerve  rather  than  of  weakness  of 
muscle ;  but  whether  it  be  of  nerve  or  of  muscle  it  is  a 
weakness;  and  this  weakness  will  confront  us  in  the 
collectivist  State  to  some  extent,  although  doubtless  to  a 
much  less  extent  than  under  the  competitive  system/ 
Now,  there  is  only  one  cure,  for  unfitness  or  unwilling- 
ness to  work,  and  this  cure  is  coercion. 

Coercion  may  be  brutal  and  it  may  be  benevolent. 
No  man  is  more  unhappy  than  a  man  who  is  physically 
strong  enough  to  work  and  nervously  unable  to  do  so. 
Nervous  inability  to  work  generally  expresses  itself  in 
the  unwillingness  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made. 
Unwillingness  is  for  the  most  part  due  to  inability  to 
make  up  one's  mind  to  work.  Under  the  competitive 
system  a  man  has  to  make  up  his  mind  to  work  or  has 
to  starve.  When  he  reaches  the  brink  of  the  grave, 
society  salves  its  conscience  by  putting  him  into  a  poor- 
house,  where  he  is  kept  for  an  insufficient  time,  render- 
ing him  all  the  more  unfit  for  work,  and  plunging  him 
at  the  end  of  that  time  once  more  into  the  competitive 
mill.  The  time  that  he  remains  in  the  poorhouse  de- 
pends in  part  upon  the  decision  of  a  magistrate  who  is 
generally  ignorant  of  the  problems  of  pauperism,  and  it 
depends  also  —  in  England,  at  any  rate  —  upon  the 
caprice  of  the  pauper.  Under  certain  conditions  he 
thinks  himself  fit  for  the  poorhouse  and  commits  him- 
self thereto ;  and  under  another  condition  he  gets  tired 
of  the  poorhouse  and  decides  to  leave  it.  The  folly  of 
this  system  is  evidenced  by  the  hopeless  result  that 
"once  a  pauper,  always  a  pauper." 

The  condition  of  the  pauper  is  undoubtedly  capable 

1  To  a  much  less  extent  because  this  weakness  is  generally  the  result  of 
overwork,  underfeeding,  worry,  and  the  alcoholism  to  which  all  these  in- 
evitably tend. 


296  COLLECTIVISM 

of  being  improved.  Instead  of  immuring  him  within 
the  four  walls  of  an  institution  from  which  he  emerges 
no  better  fitted  for  serviceable  work  than  before  he 
entered  it,  a  method  has  prevailed  in  Holland  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  of  returning  the  pauper  to  the 
land,  and  giving  him  there  an  opportunity  of  recover- 
ing the  physical  strength  or  the  nerve  strength,  as  the 
case  may  be,  which  regular  life,  open  air,  and  healthy 
occupation  contribute  to  restore.  The  benefit  of  this 
system  to  the  pauper  is  twofold.  The  labour  of  the 
pauper  is  applied  in  a  manner  which  is  least  expensive 
to  the  community.  In  the  Dutch  farm  colonies  every 
pauper  is  put  to  the  work  for  which  he  turns  out  to 
be  best  fitted ;  the  strongest  and  less  intelligent  to  that 
of  digging,  those  that  are  less  strong  and  more  intelli- 
gent to  work  where  less  strength  and  more  intelligence 
are  required.  So  that  a  farm  colony  can  be  made,  if  not 
quite  self-supporting,  very  nearly  so.  But  the  principal 
importance  of  the  farm  colony  is  that  if  the  pauper  is 
capable  of  reformation  at  all,  the  life  of  a  farm  colony  is 
one  that  will  tend  to  reform  him  and  restore  him  to  ser- 
viceable work  under  the  same  conditions  as  his  other 
fellow-creatures. 

Now,  the  coercion  necessary  to  reform  the  pauper  we 
have  not  yet  intelligence  enough  to  exercise.  The  New 
York  Legislature  has  three  times  thrown  out  a  pauper 
colony  bill  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  refused 
to  subject  the  pauper  to  confinement  during  a  time  long 
enough  to  effect  improvement.-^ 

1  The  pauper  colony  bill  three  times  presented  to  the  Legislature  and 
three  times  rejected  by  it  proposes  an  indeterminate  sentence  ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  proposes  that  a  pauper  shall  be  confined  for  a  time  not  exceeding 
three  years,  but  subject  to  reduction  as  soon  as,  in  the  opinion  of  the  con- 
stituted authority,  the  pauper  is  deemed  fit  to  earn  his  own  living  outside 
of  the  institution.     It  has  proved  heretofore  impossible  to  make  our  Legis- 


SOME   FEATURES   OF  COLLECTIVISM  297 

The  widespread  ignorance  on  the  subject  of  pauper- 
ism seems  to  make  a  long  period  of  education  necessary 
for  intelligent  legislation  on  the  subject ;  but  the  ques- 
tion of  pauperism  has  already  been  discussed  elsewhere  ^ 
and  need  not  be  referred  to  here  further  than  to  recall 
the  argument  therein  made  that  until  the  pauper  is 
recognised  to  be  morally  and  nervously  sick,  and  there- 
fore as  much  in  need  of  humane  treatment  and,  if  neces- 
sary, humane  coercion,  as  a  patient  in  a  hospital,  it  is 
impossible  to  expect  that  the  pauper  problem  can  be  to 
any  extent  solved. 

In  a  collectivist  State  the  pauper  will  have  to  be  cared 
for  by  the  State  as  now.  The  pauper  and  the  ciimiual 
then,  as  now,  will  represent  the  lowest  grade  of  human- 
ity with  which  the  State  will  have  to  deal,  for  it  is  the 
only  part  of  the  community  upon  which  coercion  will 
have  to  be  used. 

The  Elmira  Reformatory  furnishes  a  model  of  the 
way  the  collectivist  State  will  deal  with  the  criminal. 
The  Dutch  pauper  colonies  furnish  a  model  of  how  the 
collectivist  State  will  deal  with  the  pauper.  The  collec- 
tivist State,  however,  will  have  the  advantage  over  our 
present  competitive  system,  in  the  fact  that  there  will 
be  no  longer  any  persons  under  the  collectivist  State  to 
complain  of  convict  labour,  all  the  product  of  convict 

lature  understand  that  under  this  system  of  indeterminate  sentence  no 
pauper  who  is  fit  for  freedom  would  remain  as  long  as  three  years  under 
confinement;  many,  indeed,  might  be  restored  to  the  community  within  a 
month  or  even  within  three  days,  if  at  the  expiration  of  the  three  days  it 
were  clear  that  the  pauper  were  willing  and  able  to  provide  for  himself; 
for  it  need  not  take  longer  than  three  days  for  intelligent  administrators 
to  understand  that  a  pauper  has  been  committed  to  the  institution  by 
mistake. 

^  "Evolution  and  Effort,"  chap,  x.,  The  Problem  of  Pauperism,  p. 
157 ;  and  ante,  book  i.,  chap,  iii.,  §  7  (a)  Poverty. 


298  COLLECTIVISM 

labour  going  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  community  in- 
stead of  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  workingman. 

In  proportion  as  the  inmate  of  a  pauper  colony  be- 
comes fitted  for  life  outside  the  institution  he  will  be 
given  more  and  more  liberty,  until  at  last  he  graduates 
therefrom  under  conditions  similar  to  those  which  now 
attend  liberation  from  the  Elmira  Reformatory ;  and  he 
will  be  put  to  such  employment  as  he  has  been  specifi- 
cally fitted  for  in  the  institute. 

§  2.    DlSTKIBUTION   OF   WORK 

With  the  single  exception,  therefore,  of  the  pauper  and 
criminal  classes,  there  will  be  no  separation  of  citizens 
into  castes  according  to  occupation.  There  will  doubt- 
less be  unskilled  labourers  in  the  collectivist  State  as  in 
ours ;  not  because  men  will  be  forced  into  unskilled 
labour  by  a  competitive  system,  or  kept  confined  to  un- 
skilled labour,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  deserve 
a  better  order  of  employment ;  but  because  out  of  every 
hundred  men  born  into  the  world  there  is  a  certain  pro- 
portion by  nature  fitted  only  for  unskilled  work,  and 
against  this  classification  of  natm-e  human  institutions 
are  powerless.  Under  the  collectivist  system  ever}^  man 
born  into  the  world  will  be  born  under  equal  conditions ; 
that  is  to  say,  equal  opportunities.  If  he  is  fit  for  a 
high  class  of  work,  high-class  work  will  be  open  to  him ; 
if  he  is  fit  only  for  the  lowest  class  of  work,  it  is  only 
the  lowest  class  of  work  that  he  will  be  asked  to  per- 
form. But  he  is  not  for  that  reason  to  be  deprived  of 
his  share  of  the  total  collectivist  income.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  perhaps  because  he  is  an  unskilled  work- 
man, and  therefore  called  upon  to  do  least  pleasant 
work,  that  he  deserves  the  full  share  of  income  more 
than   those  who,  being   favoured   by  nature,  are   able 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  299 

to  do  a  higher  class  of  work,  or  by  other  natural  gifts 
are  able  to  perform  their  allotted  work  in  a  shorter 
time  than  others. 

There  will  therefore  be  in  the  collectivist  State  some 
classification  of  individuals,  though  to  a  less  degree 
than  in  our  own.  The  difference,  however,  between 
them  will  be  less,  for  all  will  be  furnished  with  the 
same  necessaries  and  even  comforts  of  life ;  but  those 
engaged  in  the  higher  work  of  the  community  will  have 
the  advantage  which  necessarily  results  from  the  gifts 
with  which  nature  has  endowed  them ;  that  is  to  say, 
they  will  generally  benefit  in  the  first  place  by  shorter 
hours  of  work  and  therefore  longer  hours  of  leisure ; 
in  the  second  place  the  work  will  be  less  arduous  be- 
cause more  agreeable ;  and  in  the  third  place  they 
may  possibly  be  better  able  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunities  for  increasing  the  sum  of  positive  plea- 
sure which  will  be  offered  to  those  willing  to  employ 
their  leisure  in  rendering  extra  services  to  the  State 
therefor. 

To  this  last  point  it  will  be  necessary  to  give  some 
special  attention.  There  are  some  pleasures  which  nec- 
essarily involve  more  expense  than  others ;  for  example, 
the  pleasure  of  sailing,  riding,  driving,  bicycling,  and 
everything  that  needs  tools  of  an  expensive  character. 
There  seems  no  reason  why,  within  limits,  those  persons 
able  and  willing  to  render  more  service  than  that  al- 
lotted to  them  might  not  be  permitted  to  render  such 
service  and  receive  as  compensation  the  opportunity  for 
enjoying  a  larger  share  of  these  positive  pleasures  than 
those  that  are  not  willing  or  able  to  render  these  extra 
services.  For  the  aim  of  collectivism  is  not  to  level  all 
men,  but  to  prevent  some  men  from  becoming  subject  to 
others,  and  to  give  to  every  man  the  opportunity  of  do- 
ing his  best  service  for  the  State  without  involving  the 


300  COLLECTIVISM 

State  in  the  loss  of  service  whicli  has  been  shown  to  re- 
sult from  the  competitive  system.  There  is  no  reason 
why  a  man  who  is  better  fitted  by  nature  to  work  for 
the  State  than  another  should  not  be  allowed  to  render 
extra  services  to  the  State  and  to  receive  therefor  some 
extra  compensation  in  the  shape  of  extra  pleasure.  The 
danger  and  injustice  which  have  resulted  from  the 
granting  of  extra  benefit  to  extra  service  under  the 
competitive  system  is  that  it  has  made  it  possible  for 
one  man  so  to  accumulate  extra  benefits  that  he  was 
able  to  monopolise  these  benefits  and  to  have  more  of 
them  at  his  disposal  than  he  could  himself  enjoy ;  and 
the  effect  of  such  monopoly  has  been  to  deprive  others 
of  his  fellow-creatures,  not  only  of  these  benefits,  but 
even  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  It  is  in  the  accumulation 
that  evil  resides,  not  in  the  extra  benefit.  So  long  as 
accumulation  is  avoided,  the  system  of  extra  benefits 
would  give  to  every  man  a  stimulus  for  work  which 
would  benefit  the  whole  community,  injure  no  one,  and 
increase  the  positive  pleasure  which  every  man  could 
secure  for  himself  out  of  the  common  stock. 

The  foregoing  will  serve  to  explain  the  natural  clas- 
sification into  which  the  least  gifted  citizens  of  the  com- 
munity will  naturally  fall ;  the  lowest  of  all  will  be  the 
criminal  class,  which  for  reasons  above  explained  will 
probably  be  smaller  than  at  present ;  next  will  come  the 
pauper  class,  which  for  reasons  also  explained  is  likely 
to  be  smaller  than  at  present.  Upon  these  two  classes 
coercion  will  have  to  be  used,  but  it  is  hoped  that  the 
coercion  will,  under  more  enlightened  conditions,  be  less 
unenlightened  than  now.  The  next  class  in  order  will 
be  those  whom  education  has  demonstrated  to  be  least 
fitted  for  intelligent  work  and  will  include  the  un- 
skilled workman ;  and  above  him  will  be  constituted 


SOME   FEATURES  OF   COLLECTIVISM  301 

classifications  of  work  which  will  not  constitute  classifi- 
cations of  individuals. 

Nothing  would  be  worse  than  a  classification  of  per- 
sons that  would  tend  to  degenerate  into  a  system  of 
caste.  The  work,  however,  would  be  classified  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  be  generally  graded  to  various  degrees  of 
intelligence  and  education  ;  for  example,  the  ability  de- 
veloped by  the  child  at  school  would  determine  the 
degree  to  which  it  was  to  the  interest  of  the  State  to  ex- 
tend his  education  and  the  extent  to  which  his  education 
was  carried,  and  the  character  of  the  education  he  re- 
ceives would  tend  to  determine  the  character  of  work 
which  would  in  the  first  instance  be  assigned  to  him. 

If  the  effect  of  general  education  and  equal  distribu- 
tion of  income  upon  the  race  was  to  put  an  end  to 
unskilled  workmen  as  a  class  altogether,  so  that  there 
was  no  man  in  the  community  so  unintelligent  as  not  to 
be  fitted  for  skilled  work,  as  it  seems  possible,  though 
not  for  a  long  time  probable,  unskilled  work  would  have 
to  be  distributed  among  all  members  of  the  community 
by  rotation,  or  by  lot,  or  by  a  mixture  of  both. 

This  plan  may  seem  a  fantastical  one  to  those  accus- 
tomed to  our  present  system,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is 
not  half  so  fantastical  to  us  as  would  to  Alexander  the 
Great  have  seemed  the  idea  that  under  any  conceivable 
system  a  man  could  one  day  enjoy  the  executive  power 
vested  in  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the 
next  day  be  peacefully  practising  law  or  unostentatiously 
devoting  himself  to  artificial  incubation  ;  and  yet  such 
to-day  is  the  life  of  ex-President  Harrison,  and  such 
was  but  lately  the  occupation  of  ex-President  Hayes. 
There  is  nothing  degrading  about  manual  work ;  indeed, 
the  daintiest  of  our  millionaires  pride  themselves  upon 
being  sportsmen ;  and  no  sportsman  who  has  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  down  big  game  without  the  assistance 


302  COLLECTIVISM 

of  a  guide  (and  surely  none  but  such  deserve  the  name 
of  sportsman)  would  fail  to  admit  that  it  involves  work, 
no  other  than  that  of  the  butcher's  boy.  The  greatest 
novelist  of  the  day  takes  pleasure  in  the  manual  labour 
attending  the  cultivation  of  his  field.  Ruskin,  the 
daintiest  of  our  art  critics,  did  not  disdain  to  dig ;  and 
we  all  remember  the  devotion  of  Gladstone  to  the  hew- 
ing of  timber.  If  the  hard  and  unpleasant  work  of  life, 
the  burden  of  which  is  now  thrown  entirely  upon  the 
shoulders  of  a  particular  class,  were  divided  between 
all  those  who  to-day  consume  the  product  of  their  toil 
in  such  wasteful  and  unnecessary  professions  as  com- 
mercial travelling,  advertising,  life  insurance,  litigation, 
stock-broking,  etc.,  it  is  obvious  that  the  amount  of 
manual  work  that  each  man  would  have  to  do  would  be 
comparatively  small. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  useless  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  an  attempt  to  compel  the  men  who,  under  our  pres- 
ent system,  are  dispensed  by  wealth  from  the  necessity 
of  doing  manual  work,  to  do  such  work  would  be  likely 
to  result  in  hopeless  failure.  Indeed,  the  mere  thought 
of  it  cannot  but  raise  a  laugh.  It  is  utterly  absurd ; 
and  the  absurdity  of  it  prevents  men  from  imagining  the 
practicability  of  such  a  plan  even  with  a  totally  different 
population,  animated  by  totally  different  motives  under 
totally  different  conditions.  But  the  bare  idea  of  Wall 
Street  brokers  engaged  in  carrying  a  hod  suggests  the 
extreme  inexpediency  of  allowing  such  an  experiment  as 
collectivism  to  be  forced  upon  us  to-day,  and  the  advis- 
ableness,  therefore,  indeed,  the  imperativeness  of  a  study 
of  the  conditions  which  might  give  rise  to  such  a  mis- 
fortune. Notwithstanding,  then,  the  smile  with  which 
the  collectivist  system  of  government  is  likely  to  be 
greeted  by  those  wliose  imaginations  do  not  permit  of 
their  grasping  the  extent  to  which  conditions  can  change, 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  303 

let  us  next  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the  effect  upon  the 
community  of  the  large  amoimt  of  leisure  which  under 
a  coUectivist  system  it  would  enjoy. 

§  3.  Leisure  secured  by  Collectivism 

No  man  who  has  closely  followed  politics  in  the  United 
States  will  be  disposed  to  deny  that  one  of  the  chief 
reasons  for  the  abuses  which  are  tolerated  in  politics  is 
the  fact  that  very  few  citizens  have  time  to  take  account 
of  them.  There  is,  of  course,  a  certain  number  of  people 
in  this  country  who  are  by  wealth  endowed  with  more 
leisure  than  they  can  enjoy ;  but  this  class  has  not  yet 
in  this  country  learned  that  politics  can  constitute  as 
interesting  an  occupation  as  the  pursuit  of  bags  of  anise- 
seed,  nor  become  alive  to  the  fact  that  their  wealth  im- 
poses upon  them  some  duty  to  the  State  in  consequence 
thereof.  In  England,  where  the  existence  of  leisure  is 
of  old  standing,  this  lesson  has  been  learned,  and  a  very 
considerable  part  of  the  leisure  class  devotes  itself  to 
public  affairs ;  not  because  it  is  compelled  to  do  so,  but 
partly  because  of  the  interest  of  the  work  itself  and 
partly  because  of  the  personal  consideration  which  re- 
sults therefrom.  As,  however,  the  holding  of  public 
office  exposes  a  man  as  much  to  public  abuse  as  to  pub- 
lic consideration,  it  may  not  unreasonably  be  concluded 
that  the  interest  of  the  work  itself,  enhanced  by  a 
certain  sense  of  noblesse  oblige,  is  perhaps  the  largest 
element  in  the  motive  which  induces  men  of  leisure 
in  England  to  devote  their  time  to  public  affairs.  The 
fact  is  that  man  is  not  as  bad  as  commercialism  is  always 
trying  to  make  him.  Even  men  who  are  obliged  by  in- 
dustrial conditions  to  devote  all  their  time  to  making 
money  are  continually  seen  giving  up  their  evenings  to 
works  of  philantlnopy  and  to  the  general  good.     If  we 


304  COLLECTIVISM 

take  due  account  of  all  the  disinterested  work  done  by 
busy  men  in  the  city  of  New  York  alone,  we  cannot  but 
be  impressed  by  the  fact  that  the  amount  of  time  that 
New  York  citizens  are  willing  to  give  to  this  class  of 
work  is  determined  not  by  themselves,  but  by  the  obli- 
gations which  the  necessity  of  supporting  their  families 
imposes  upon  them. 

And  if  this  be  true  of  the  upper  and  middle  class,  it 
is  still  more  true  of  the  workingman.  Under  existing 
conditions  the  workingman  returns  to  his  home  for  the 
most  part  worn  out  by  the  labours  of  the  day.  Never- 
theless, he  is  often  driven  by  the  necessities  of  his  con- 
dition to  devote  his  evening  to  the  interest  of  his  trade 
union.  What  leisure  he  has,  then,  is  taken  up  by  the 
necessity  of  organising  in  order  to  maintain  a  successful 
conflict  with  capital.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that 
he  has  no  time  to  give  to  politics,  or  that,  absorbed  as  he 
now  is  by  the  necessity  of  organising  labour  against  cap- 
ital in  the  struggle  to  maintain  a  high  rate  of  wages,  he 
has  not  yet  become  alive  to,  or  indeed  has  leisure,  for 
the  duty  which  he  owes  to  the  State.  If  it  is  possible  to 
conceive  of  a  condition  of  things  in  which  all  this  con- 
flict would  be  eliminated ;  in  which  every  man  would  be 
free  from  worry  regarding  the  support  of  himself  and 
his  family ;  in  which  every  man  would  be  called  upon  to 
work  only  five  instead  of  ten  hours  a  day,  so  that  after 
the  midday  meal  he  would  be  free  to  devote  himself 
either  to  pleasure  or  to  public  affairs,  —  if  we  can  con- 
ceive of  such  a  condition  of  things,  then  we  may  be 
able  to  understand  how  it  would  be  possible  for  such  a 
community  to  become  enlightened  as  to  its  interests  so 
that  the  great  enemy  of  all  human  progress  —  ignorance 
—  may  be  eliminated. 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  305 


§  4.  Ignorance  the  Enemy  of  Collectivism 
AND  Eliminated  by  It 

I  have  ventured  to  say  that  ignorance  was  the  great 
enemy  to  human  progress.  Let  us  next  consider  the  rule 
which  ignorance  plays  in  this  very  question  of  collectiv- 
ism, and  to  what  extent  collectivism  is  rendered  unattain- 
able by  the  ignorance  of  the  wealthy  minority  first  and 
by  that  of  the  unwealthy  majority  afterwards. 

Ignorance  of  the  wealthy  minority :  it  would  be  an 
interesting  thing  to  find  out  how  many  bankers,  stock- 
exchange  brokers,  insurance  agents,  and  lawyers,  had 
ever  read  a  book  on  collectivism.  They  all  denounce 
collectivism  with  vociferous  unanimity,  and  yet,  when 
asked  on  what  ground,  they  generally  answer  with  per- 
fect assurance  that  collectivism  proposes  to  divide  the 
whole  wealth  of  the  community  between  the  members  of 
it,  and  that,  in  view  of  the  inequalities  of  men,  such  a 
division  would  impoverish  the  wealthy  without  enrich- 
ing the  few,  and  could  only  give  rise  to  a  stage  of 
general  misery  out  of  which  would  ultimately  result 
the  same  conditions  as  prevail  to-day. 

Those  who  know  anything  upon  the  subject  at  all  are 
likely  to  quote  the  story  of  Rothschild,  who,  upon  being 
confronted  with  a  socialist,  asked  him  how  much,  upon  a 
general  distribution  of  wealth,  would  be  due  to  every 
member  of  the  French  Republic.  Upon  being  answered 
that  a  careful  calculation  had  determined  that  every  in- 
dividual of  the  State  would  be  entitled  to  tliree  francs 
and  sixty-five  centimes,  Mr.  Rothschild  handed  him  this 
amount  on  the  condition  that  he  would  say  nothing 
more  about  it.  This  is  the  convincing  kind  of  argument 
with  which  the  wealthy  minority  is  for  the  most  part 

content. 

20 


306  COLLECTIVISM 

Upon  the  difference  between  this  kind  of  socialism 
and  the  form  of  collectivism  proposed  in  these  pages  it 
is  not  necessary  to  enlarge  ;  but  it  is  important  to  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  so  long  as  such  ignorance  as  this 
prevails  amongst  our  wealthy  minority  it  is  hopeless  to 
expect  that  the  improvement  of  social  conditions  along 
these  lines  can  receive  any  help  from  them,  although 
they,  perhaps,  are  more  profoundly  interested  in  an  intel- 
ligent understanding  of  this  question  than  those  rash 
members  of  the  unwealthy  majority  who  are  being 
driven  by  legitimate  discontent  to  push  this  question  to 
a  premature  experiment.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  re- 
proach the  wealthy  minority  with  ignorance  on  this  sub- 
ject ;  on  the  contrary,  it  would  be  most  unfair  to  do  so. 
A  man  who  has  spent  his  day  in  the  tumult  of  a  stock 
exchange  is  not  disposed  thereby  for  the  serious  study 
of  abstract  politics.  The  same  is  true  of  the  banker 
who  has  to  work  his  way  through  the  legal  intricacies 
of  a  railroad  reorganisation,  or  the  lawyer,  who  has  to 
advise  not  one  but  many  bankers  in  similar  operations, 
and  to  fight  their  battles  in  crowded  law  courts. 

But  all  these  men,  and  not  these  alone,  but  all  men, 
women,  and  children  who  are  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously subjected  to  the  perpetual  stress  and  strain  of 
competition,  are  not  only  deprived  of  the  leisure  neces- 
sary for  an  intelligent  understanding  of  political  affairs, 
but  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  unfitted  for  a  proper  under- 
standing of  collectivism  by  the  environment  to  which 
they  are  subjected.  We  cannot  in  this  connection  take 
sufficient  account  of  the  automatic  mechanism  in  us 
which  myriads  of  years  have  been  engaged  in  constitut- 
ing. This  automatic  machine  is  set  upon  the  satisfac- 
tion of  its  needs  by  a  force  which  in  the  absence  of 
moral  sentiment  is  uncontrollable.  Were  the  moral 
sentiment,  which  alone  can   control  this  machine,  free 


SOME   FEATURES   OF  COLLECTIVISM  307 

from  the  same  influence  of  the  competitive  environment, 
the  moral  sentiment  might  be  strong  enough  to  control 
the  machine ;  but,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  our 
moral  sentiments  are  put  into  such  conflict  with  our 
physical  needs  that  we  are  deprived,  by  this  conflict,  of 
a  consistent  moral  standard,  and  we  are  therefore  like  a 
mariner  without  a  compass,  steering  sometimes,  under 
obedience  to  our  moral  sentiment,  in  one  direction,  and 
steering  at  another  time,  under  obedience  to  our  physical 
needs,  in  a  diametrically  opposite  one ;  so  that  whether 
we  consider  the  automaton  in  us  which  is  the  result  of 
the  competitive  system,  or  the  moral  sentiment  which  is 
perpetually  in  conflict  with  the  competitive  system,  we 
can  find  in  neither  one  nor  the  other  much  hope  for 
escape  from  the  bondage  to  the  competitive  system  under 
which  man  has  from  the  beginning  suffered. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  character  of  the 
ignorance  to  which  the  wealthy  minority  is  subjected : 

1st.  Ignorance  of  facts:  in  the  first  place,  he  does 
not  know  how  wasteful  our  present  competitive  system 
is ;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  been  taught  by  political  econ- 
omists to  believe  that  it  is  one  of  great  beauty  and  con- 
summate art;  he  does  not  know  any  better  system  to 
put  in  its  place ;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  been  by  educa- 
tion teaching  the  beauties  of  the  competitive  system  to 
the  workingman  and  has  thereby  been  putting  a  club  in 
the  hands  of  the  workingman  that  he  will  in  the  end 
inevitably  use  to  break  it  up.  The  rich  man  does  not 
know  the  danger  he  is  in ;  he  does  not  know  how  he 
can  escape  from  it.  He  neither  believes  in  the  danger 
nor  the  possibility  of  escape  if  there  be  danger. 

2d.  Ignorance  of  mental  habit:  he  is  so  accustomed 
to  believe  in  the  sacredness  of  private  property  that  he 
regards  every  man  who  disputes  the  principle  of  private 
property  as  an  enemy  of  society ;  he  is  therefore  incapa- 


308  COLLECTIVISM 

citated  by  this  mental  habit  from  the  possibility  of  seeing 
things  as  they  are ;  and,  above  all,  of  recognising  that 
the  abolition  of  private  property  would  bring  to  himself 
in  the  end  more  happiness  than  its  maintenance. 

3d.  Ignorance  of  imagination :  it  may  not  be  strictly 
accurate  to  speak  of  ignorance  of  imagination,  but  our 
capacity  for  imagination  depends  largely  upon  our 
knowledge.  The  scientific  men  of  to-day  can  imagine 
electrical  possibilities  which  a  few  years  ago  would  have 
been  unimaginable.  In  the  same  manner,  were  the 
wealthy  minority  informed  regarding  facts,  they  would 
be  capable  of  conceiving  of  a  collectivist  State  which 
to-day  is  impossible  to  them  through  ignorance  of  these 
facts. 

Let  us  consider  next  the  ignorance  of  the  unwealthy 
majority.  This  is  ignorance  of  a  very  different  charac- 
ter from  that  of  the  wealthy  minority ;  for  the  unwealthy 
majority  is  driven  by  its  poverty  to  look  to  a  change  in 
social  conditions  as  the  only  chance  for  relief ;  to  the 
same  extent,  then,  as  the  wealthy  minority  are  unfitted 
by  their  peculiar  ignorance  to  appreciate  the  possibility 
of  collectivism,  the  conditions  of  the  unwealthy  majority 
make  them  disposed  to  exaggerate  its  benefits.  Few 
things,  probably,  stand  more  in  the  way  of  a  collectivist 
programme  than  the  exaggerated  notions  of  the  un- 
wealthy majority  regarding  the  benefits  which  would 
attend  it,  and  the  erroneous  notions  regarding  the  possi- 
bility of  introducing  a  collectivist  system  at  once  and 
without  the  necessary  intermediate  steps. 

One  of  the  dangerous  notions  regarding  government 
wliich  prevail  amongst  workingmen  is  that  the  work  of 
government  is  easy,  requires  no  education,  no  special 
experience,  and  can  be  trusted  as  well  to  the  working- 
man  as  to  the  millionaire.  Perhaps  in  one  sense  this 
might  be  true ;  perhaps  the  millionaire  might  be  as  little 


SOME  FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  309 

fitted  to  govern  a  collectivist  State  as  a  workingman ; 
but  one  thing  is  certain :  the  task  of  managing  the  col- 
lectivist State  would  be  one  of  stupendous  magnitude, 
requiring  consummate  skill,  consummate  judgment,  and 
encyclopsedic  information.  The  difficulties  attending 
the  management  of  a  collectivist  State  will  be  referred 
to  more  at  length  later  on.  In  this  context  attention 
will  only  be  directed  to  the  fact  that  so  long  as  the 
unwealthy  majority  is  possessed  by  the  idea  that  the 
difficult  task  of  government  can  be  intrusted  with  in- 
difference to  the  ignorant  as  well  as  to  the  educated,  all 
experiments  at  collectivism  initiated  by  them  are  likely 
to  end  in  failure. 

The  workingmen  are  no  more  to  be  blamed  for  this 
widespread  conviction  than  the  rich  are  to  be  blamed 
for  their  equally  widespread  ignorance;  not  only  have 
workingmen  still  less  opportunity  for  acquiring  knowl- 
edge on  these  subjects  than  the  rich,  but  their  expe- 
rience has  not  been  of  a  character  to  justify  the  belief 
that  better  government  is  to  be  obtained  from  the 
wealthy  than  from  the  unwealthy.  On  the  contrary,  the 
administration  of  Tammany  Hall  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  little  though  it  in  one  sense  contributes  to  the 
comfort  of  the  poor,  nevertheless  gives  advantages  to 
workingmen  which  appear  to  them  more  conspicuous  and 
of  more  importance.  It  was  Tammany  Hall  that  in 
1820  secured  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  working- 
men  ;  it  was  Tammany  Hall  that  in  1870  rescued  the 
city  from  the  control  of  the  State  Legislature  at  Albany 
and  conferred  upon  its  citizens  the  advantage  so  dear  to 
the  workingman,  and  so  little  understood  by  him,  of  so- 
called  home  rule.  It  is  the  district  leaders  of  Tammany 
Hall  who  go  into  courts  to  rescue  workingmen  from  the 
harsh  application  of  sometimes  good  laws.  It  is  in  the 
liquor  saloons  of  Tammany  leaders  that  the  workingman 


310  COLLECTIVISM 

finds  his  club.  It  is  to  Tammany  leaders  that  the  work- 
ingman  goes  for  a  job  for  himself,  and  for  jobs  for  his 
friends  and  relations.  And,  above  all  things,  it  is  to 
Tammany  Hall  that  the  workingmen  owe  the  rate  of 
two  dollars  a  day  paid  by  the  city  to  those  who  clean 
its  streets. 

By  the  side  of  such  favours  as  these  the  question 
whether  the  streets  are  clean,  though  perhaps  of  really 
more  importance  to  them,  is  not  felt  to  be  of  the  same 
importance;  and  the  workingman,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
is  influenced,  not  by  what  is  his  real  good,  but  by  what 
he  believes  to  be  his  real  good.  The  paramount  idea 
in  the  mind  of  every  workingman  is  to  get  his  wages 
raised.  Tammany  has  constantly  helped  him  in  the  pros- 
ecution of  this  idea ;  and  for  this  reason  Tammany  — 
and  if  not  Tammany,  some  other  organisation  equally 
corrupt  —  is  pretty  sure  always,  under  the  existing  com- 
petitive system,  to  be  maintained  by  the  workingman. 
And  the  effect  of  this  upon  the  workingman  is  twofold. 
It  encourages  him,  consciously  as  well  as  unconsciously, 
to  support  corrupt  government ;  and  it  confirms  him  in 
his  conviction  that  keepers  of  liquor  saloons  are  just  as 
well  able  to  govern  as  statesmen  of  the  highest  education. 

It  has  been  already  suggested  that  one  of  the  difficul- 
ties of  a  collectivist  State,  as  indeed  of  all  States,  is  to 
secure  the  services  of  the  men  most  fitted  for  public 
office.  The  conspicuous  merit  of  the  competitive  sys- 
tem is  that  it  automatically  does  put  fit  men  at  the  head 
of  commercial  enterprises,  for  the  reason  that  none  other 
than  fit  men  can  under  the  competitive  system  success- 
fully conduct  them.  The  difficulty  of  all  government  is 
that  public  office  tends  to  be  filled  by  favour  rather  than 
by  merit.  Now,  under  the  existing  system,  although 
public  office  is  exposed  to  this  evil  tendency,  industry 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  311 

and  commerce  not  being  in  the  hands  of  government, 
but  for  the  most  part  in  private  hands  and  therefore 
subject  to  the  competitive  system,  are  not  exposed  to  it. 
But  under  a  collectivist  form  of  government,  industry 
and  commerce  being  largely  under  the  control  of  the 
State  and  therefore  not  subject  to  the  competitive  sys- 
tem, would  be  as  much  subject  to  this  evil  as  func- 
tions now  under  the  control  of  government,  and  the 
collectivist  State  would  be  relieved  of  the  constant 
pressure  which  under  the  competitive  system  now  auto- 
matically forces  the  best  men  to  the  head  of  business 
affaii-s.  A  collectivist  form  of  government,  therefore, 
would  be  more  exposed  to  the  danger  of  unfit  public 
officers  than  our  own,  because  the  industrial  offices  of 
the  community  as  well  as  the  rest  would  tend  to  be 
filled  by  favour  rather  than  by  merit.  Indeed,  this 
weakness  of  the  collectivist  form  of  government  is  by 
some  deemed  so  great  that  they  have  condemned  it  for 
this  reason  altogether.  And  the  danger  arising  through 
this  source  must  not  be  underestimated,  for  it  may  well 
be  asked  if,  under  our  own  form  of  government,  unfit 
men  are  foisted  into  public  office,  how  much  more  will 
this  be  the  case  in  a  form  of  government  still  more 
democratic  than  ours,  in  which  education  will  no  longer 
have  the  advantage  over  ignorance  that  to-day  the 
wealthy  exercise  over  the  poor !  And  how  rash  it 
would  be  suddenly  to  adopt  a  collectivist  regime  so  long 
as  the  notion  prevails  amongst  the  majority  in  the  State 
that  one  man  is  just  as  fit  to  govern  as  another! 

The  ignorance,  therefore,  of  the  unwealthy  majority 
which  disposes  it  to  believe  that  the  uneducated  are  as 
fit  for  public  office  as  the  educated  is  perhaps  the  most 
formidable  obstacle  to  collectivism  to-day,  and  seems 
assuredly  a  fair  reason  for  straining  every  nerve  to  pre- 
vent a  premature  experiment  of  it.     But  this  ignorance 


312  COLLECTIVISM 

is  being  somewhat  diminished  in  England  by  the  efforts 
at  co-operation  which  have  for  many  years  been  mace 
there.  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb  ^  has  pointed  out  that,  how- 
ever unsuccessful  many  of  these  experiments  have  been, 
they  have  had  the  effect  of  demonstrating  the  import- 
ance of  putting  at  the  head  of  business  affairs  men  who 
are  by  capacity  and  education  fitted  therefor.  This,  coo, 
is  daily  brought  home  to  the  workingman  in  the  success 
and  failure  of  strikes  and  of  trade  unions.  There  is, 
therefore,  a  slow  education  now  going  on  which  is  of  a 
character  to  teach  the  unwealthy  majority  the  lesson  of 
which  they  stand  so  much  in  need. 

But  even  after  this  lesson  is  learned  the  workingman 
will  by  no  means  be  equipped  with  the  knowledge  neces- 
sary to  govern  a  coUectivist  State.  And  perhaps  the 
most  important  point  to  be  retained  in  this  connection 
is  that  under  our  existing  competitive  system  not  only 
is  the  workingman  deprived  of  the  leisure  necessary  for 
acquiring  knowledge,  but  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how 
under  a  competitive  system  he  ever  could  enjoy  it.  It 
has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  tyranny  of  the  Mar- 
ket puts  an  iron  limit  to  wages  and  to  leisure  which  under 
the  existing  industrial  system  is  a  form  of  wage.  Up  to 
a  certain  point  the  standard  of  living  can  be  raised  ;  but 
it  can  be  raised  only  up  to  the  point  where  by  so  raising 
the  standard  the  workingman  becomes,  by  good  living 
and  sufficient  hours  of  rest,  better  fitted  for  doing  the 
work  he  is  given  to  do.  And  if  it  is  a  workman's  duty 
to  punch  eyes  in  needles,  his  standard  of  living  can  be 
raised  to  the  point  which  will  enable  him  to  punch  eyes 
into  the  largest  number  of  needles  in  a  day,  but  it  can 
never  be  raised  beyond  this  point.  The  moment  the 
point  is  reached  at  which  the  maximum  work  is  got  out 
1    The  Co-operative  Movement  in  England . 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  313 

of  a  man  during  the  best  years  of  his  life,  that  moment 
capital  can  no  longer  afford  to  improve  his  condition ; 
for  beyond  this  point  the  investment  will  result  in  loss 
instead  of  in  profit. 

And  if  the  workman  whose  working  power  it  is  sought 
to  raise  by  increasing  his  wages  uses  in  mental  labour 
the  leisure  which  is  allowed  him  for  rest,  the  question 
arises  whether  he  is  not  diminishing  his  capacity  for 
work  thereby. 

It  is  notorious  that  workingmen  whose  leisure  is  in- 
creased do  not  spend  their  leisure  in  study :  they  cannot 
be  expected  to  do  so ;  they  spend  it  in  amusement  or  in 
their  trade  unions,  or  in  reading  the  newspapers ;  and 
how  little  real  education  there  is  for  them  in  reading  the 
newspapers  may  be  judged  by  the  admitted  fact  that,  in 
the  United  States  at  any  rate,  commercial  exigencies  — 
the  tyranny  of  the  Market  again  —  tend  to  lower  the 
standard  of  newspapers  so  that  they  serve  to  paralyze 
the  intelligence  of  men  rather  than  to  improve  it. 
Upon  this  theme  alone  a  book  might  be  written ;  but 
it  is  not  necessary ;  the  forces  that  contribute  to  keep 
the  workingman  in  ignorance  of  the  facts  it  is  most  es- 
sential for  a  voting  citizen  to  know  are  too  obvious  to 
need  discussion.  The  essential  point  is  that  so  long  as 
the  competitive  system  lasts  the  ignorance  must  last; 
it  would  seem,  then,  that  under  this  system  an  honest, 
enlightened  democracy  is  well-nigh  impossible.  If  the 
voter  not  only  is  to-day  ignorant  of  the  facts  necessary 
to  make  a  sound  judgment  on  the  political  problems  he 
is  called  upon  to  solve,  but  if  he  must  always  remain 
ignorant  of  them  so  long  as  he  is  kept  by  the  competi- 
tive system  subject  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Market,  does 
it  not  seem  difficult  to  believe  that  a  real  democracy 
can  prosper? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  prosperous  democracy  ever  has 


314  COLLECTIVISM 

existed,  if  by  democracy  is  understood  government  by 
the  people.  Every  form  of  government  tacitly  assumes 
that  it  is  to  be  controlled  by  a  few ;  and  every  form  of 
government  has  been  controlled  by  a  few.  The  people 
are  given  a  periodical  opportunity  to  throw  out  one  oli- 
garchy, but  only  on  the  condition  of  putting  in  another. 
In  availing  themselves  of  this  opportunity  the  people 
exercise  undoubtedly  a  valuable  control.  But  the 
people  cannot  be  said  to  govern;  they  are  governed, 
and  by  a  succession  of  oligarchies,  with  the  privilege  of 
being  ungrateful  to  them  all.  And  it  is  because  every 
democratic  government  is  to  this  extent  a  sham  that 
so-called  democracies  have  sometimes  prospered.  It  is 
because  the  few  well-informed  men  in  a  community,  for 
the  most  part,  prove  themselves  stronger  than  the  un- 
informed many,  that  republics  survive.  Unfortunately, 
what  has  been  the  rule  up  to  the  present  can  no  longer 
be  counted  upon  as  likely  to  be  the  rule  hereafter.  The 
uninformed  many,  without  having  acquired  enough  in- 
formation to  be  able  to  solve  the  problems  of  govern- 
ment, are  rapidly  becoming  sufficiently  organised  to 
wrest  the  reins  of  government  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
minority,  and  when  they  do  this  we  shall  see  the  work- 
ing of  a  real  democracy  under  the  competitive  system. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  selfishness  of  the 
workingman,  embittered  by  hatred  and  uninformed  by 
education,  is  not  likely  to  deal  gently  with  those  to 
whom  they  attribute  all  the  evils  of  past  misgovern- 
ment,  nor  is  it  likely  that  in  the  satisfaction  of  a  long- 
pent  vindictiveness  they  will  be  in  a  temper  to  build 
up  an  enduring  or  a  prosperous  government  of  their 
own. 

When,  after  the  passage  of  the  last  Reform  Bill  in 
England,  Mr.  Lowe,  in  speaking  of  the  workingmen  to 
whom  the  franchise  had  been  extended,  said,  "Now  let 


SOME  FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  315 

US  educate  our  masters,"  he  did  not  appreciate  that  by 
educating  them  they  would  become  masters  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  name.  Indeed,  the  irascibility  of  conserva- 
tives over  the  growing  power  of  the  workingman  is  very 
much  like  that  of  a  parent  who,  to  stop  the  clamour  of 
a  disobedient  child  crying  for  a  loaded  weapon,  were  to 
put  it  in  his  hand  and  then  grow  angry  when  the  child, 
having  learned  its  use,  proceeded  to  employ  it  to  his 
own  advantage. 

Fortunately,  just  as  competition  in  the  realms  of 
nature  under  one  set  of  conditions  produces  the  tiger, 
but  under  other  conditions  produces  the  ant,  so  compe- 
tition in  our  own  community  under  one  set  of  conditions 
produces  the  sweater,  and  under  other  conditions  pro- 
duces the  trade  union.  And  although  it  is  impossible 
to  expect  that  the  workingman  will,  under  the  competi- 
tive system,  get  the  leisure  to  study  the  abstract  science 
of  government,  the  trade  union  furnishes  him  with  a 
school  of  practical  politics  which  is  of  incomparable  value. 
When,  during  the  last  century,  the  old  guild  ceased 
to  exist,  and  our  legislatures  became  impregnated  with 
the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire,  the  workmen  were  reduced 
to  combine  as  the  only  alternative  to  starvation  wages, 
and  in  their  combinations  they  were  ruled  by  the  doc- 
trines which  successively  overthrew  the  revolutions  of 
1789,  1830,  and  1848.  They  were  indoctrinated  by 
the  theory  of  the  equality  of  men  and  of  the  natural 
consequence  of  the  doctrine  that  "  what  concerns  all 
should  be  decided  by  all;"  and  so  early  trade  unions 
were  characterised  by  the  most  extravagant  democracy. 
There  were  no  permanent  officers,  no  permanent  com- 
mittee, no  permanent  secretary;  the  chairman  was 
elected  at  every  meeting  for  that  meeting  only ;  every 
member  voted  on  every  measure ;  in  a  word,  the  gov- 
ernment was  that  of  a  town  meeting.     As  trade  unions 


316  COLLECTIVISM 

became  too  large  and  scattered  for  this  simplest  form  of 
government  there  was  gradually  developed  a  system  of 
instructed  delegates ;  that  is  to  say,  of  persons  delegated 
by  every  branch  to  cast  the  vote  decided  upon  by  the 
branch  at  a  meeting  of  delegates  of  all  the  branches. 
And  all  questions  that  were  raised  at  the  meetings  of  dele- 
gates upon  which  the  delegates  had  not  received  instruc- 
tions from  their  various  branches  were  referred  back  to 
the  branches  by  referendum.  This  system  necessitated 
a  recording  secretary  in  each  branch  and  a  recording 
secretary  for  the  meeting  of  delegates ;  and  as  the  trade 
union  increased  in  numbers  and  in  strength,  more  and 
more  work  fell  upon  the  secretaries,  so  that  it  became 
impossible  for  them  properly  to  do  the  work  of  the 
trade  unions  and  at  the  same  time  do  the  work  of  their 
respective  trades.  Paid  secretaries  became  therefore 
necessary,  and  with  the  paid  secretary  came,  under  the 
democratic  system,  all  the  evils  of  a  practically  omnipo- 
tent bureaucracy;  for  the  secretaries  soon  became  so 
superior  to  the  ordinary  workingmen  in  the  handling 
of  political  machinery  that  the  referendum  became  as 
purely  a  matter  of  form  as  was  the  plebiscite  under  the 
Empire.  This  the  rank  and  file  would  not  long  tolerate  ; 
and,  what  with  the  decay  of  some  trade  unions  through 
disaffection  of  members,  and  the  purgation  of  others 
through  their  revolt,  there  gradually  became  evolved  a 
system  of  representative  government  such  as  we  have 
in  our  most  enlightened  republics,  under  which  a  rep- 
resentative body  of  workingmen  keep  control  of  a  paid 
body  of  administrative  experts,  tlius  as  nearly  as  possible 
solving  the  problem  of  combining  efficient  administra- 
tion and  popular  control. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  political  errors  which  some  of 
the  trade  unions  have  corrected  in  their  members. 

First,  they  have  learned  that  all  men  are  not  born 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  317 

equal,  in  the  sense  that  some  men  are  better  fitted  to 
manage  a  trade  union  than  others. 

Secondly,  that  a  man  cannot  work  in  a  factory  and 
manage  a  trade  union  at  the  same  time. 

O 

Thirdly,  that  factory  hands  cannot  by  any  system  of 
instructed  delegates  or  referendum  manage  a  trade 
union  themselves. 

Fourthly,  that  a  paid  expert  is  the  best  person  to 
administer. 

Fifthly,  that  an  elected  representative  is  the  best  per- 
son to  control. 

Sixthly,  they  have  learned  to  distinguish  between 
those  matters  which  should  be  left  to  the  administrator, 
those  wliich  should  be  left  to  the  representative,  and  those 
which  should  be  reserved  to  the  members.  Or,  in 
other  words,  they  have  learned  the  proper  functions  of 
administration,  representation,  and  referendum  respec- 
tively. 

In  addition  to  these  political  lessons,  trade  unions 
have  taught  their  members  some  valuable  social  lessons 
also.  For  example :  They  have  become  accustomed  to 
see  the  funds  which  they  contribute  to  the  trade  union 
spent  in  supporting  those  members  who  are  out  of  work. 
They  have  even  become  accustomed  to  see  these  funds 
applied  to  the  maintenance  of  a  strike  in  a  different 
place  and  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  members  who  are 
total  strangers  to  them ;  and,  in  the  effort  to  maintain  a 
high  standard  of  wages  for  all,  the  workmen  in  one 
town  where  wages  are  high  have  been  known  to  con- 
sent to  a  reduction  of  their  wages  in  order  to  raise  the 
general  level  above  that  which  ruled  in  other  places.  It 
is  a  fact  of  no  small  importance  that  when  the  question 
was  put  whether  the  York  branch  of  the  Flint  Glass 
Makers  would  consent  to  a  reduction  of  their  wages  in 


318  COLLECTIVISM 

the  interests  of  other  branches,  the  vote  in  favour  of 
consenting  to  this  sacrifice  was  75  to  9.^ 

It  is  true  that  the  motive  which  underlies  the  sacri- 
fices involved,  in  the  foregoing  examples  is  the  selfish 
desire  to  maintain  high  wages,  each  for  himself;  but 
two  distinct  steps  towards  collectivism  are  made  by  the 
adoption  of  the  trade  union  plan.  In  the  first  place  it 
tends  to  create  a  habit  of  opinion  that  the  interests  of 
the  individual  can  best  be  advanced  by  advancing  the 
interests  of  the  whole  group  to  which  he  belongs ;  and 
in  the  second  place  it  creates  a  willingness  to  make  a 
personal  sacrifice  for  the  realisation  of  this  general  end. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  trade  unions  are  an 
unmixed  good  because  they  result  in  these  two  advan- 
tages. It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that,  like  all  the 
fruits  of  the  competitive  system,  trade  unionism  has  its 
bad  as  well  as  its  good  side,  but  in  connection  with  the 
question  we  have  particularly  studied  it  is  obvious  that 
trade  unions  constitute  a  school  of  political  science  and 
moral  discipline  to  which  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if 
our  millionaires  were  sometimes  subjected.  Neverthe- 
less, the  education  furnished  by  trade  unions  is  in 
some  respects  not  beneficial,  for  it  produces  a  type 
which,  because  it  is  the  result  of  successful  battle,  has 
all  the  evil  characteristics  which  successful  battle  tends 
to  produce.  Upon  this  subject  no  better  authority  can 
be  cited  than  the  authors  of  "  Industrial  Democracy," 
themselves  warm  admirers  of  trade  unions  and  earnest 
advocates  of  the  principles  for  which  they  stand. 

"  Those  who  know  the  trade  union  world  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  recognising,  in  certain  of  its  sections,  both 
in  corporate  policy  and  in  the  characters  of  individual 
leaders,   the  same  strong,  self-reliant,  and   pugnacious 

1  Address  of  the  Central  Secretary  of  the  Society  in  the  Flint  Glass 
Makers'  Magazine,  October,  1895,  vol.  ii.  uo.  8,  pp.  447-451. 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTR'ISM  319 

spirit ;  the  same  impatience  of  sentiment,  philanthropy, 
and  idealism ;  the  same  self-complacency  at  their  own 
success  in  the  fight,  and  the  same  contempt  for  those 
who  have  failed ;  above  all,  the  same  conception  of  the 
social  order,  based  on  the  axiom  that  to  him  that  hath 
shall  be  given,  and  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be 
taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath.  To  the  idealist 
who  sees  in  trade  unionism  a  great  class  upheaval  of 
the  oppressed  against  the  oppressors,  it  comes  as  a  shock 
to  recognise  in  the  trade  union  official  of  this  type, 
pushing  the  interests  of  his  own  clients  at  the  expense 
of  everybody  else,  merely  another  embodiment  of  the 
'  spirit  of  the  bagman.'  "  ^ 

It  is  questionable  whether  the  benefits  that  workmen 
derive  from  trade  unions  compensate  for  the  spirit  of 
"complacency"  and  "contempt"  which  they  engender. 
For  this  is  the  very  spirit  which  is  most  hostile  to  that 
of  sacrifice  and  considerateness  under  which  alone  a  col- 
lectivist  State  could  survive.  It  is  to  be  feared,  therefore, 
that,  with  trade  unions  or  without,  the  workingman  has 
a  long  way  to  travel  before  he  can  understand  or  appre- 
ciate the  principles  which  lie  at  the  very  foundation 
of  collectivism. 

To  the  ignorance  which  specifically  characterises  the 
wealthy  minority  on  the  one  hand  and  the  unwealthy 
majority  on  the  other  must  be  added  another  kind  of 
ignorance  which  characterises  both  of  them,  —  such  ig- 
norance, for  example,  as  that  regarding  the  true  character 
of  pauperism  and  crime,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made.  Obviously  there  is  for  this  triple  ignorance 
only  one  cure,  —  education ;  and  not  only  the  education  of 
schools,  but  the  education  of  experience.  How  the  edu- 
cation of  experience  can  be  applied  belongs  to  that  part  of 
our  subject  which  deals  with  the  proper  steps  to  be  taken 

1  Industrial  Democracy,  p.  581. 


320  COLLECTIVISM 

in  order  gradually  to  fit  our  present  society  for  collectiv- 
ism, and  this  will  be  studied  later. 

Reverting  now  to  the  question  from  which  we  di- 
gressed in  order  to  consider  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
collectivism  which  results  from  the  ignorance  of  the  com- 
munity, —  that  is  to  say,  the  question  of  how  tasks  are 
to  be  classified  so  as  to  reduce  the  inequalities  and  con- 
sequent injustice  which  characterise  our  existing  system, 
—  let  us  consider  how  far  the  work  allotted  to  each  in- 
dividual in  a  community  would  be  affected  by  its  diver- 
sity. 

§   5.    DiVEESITY   OF   WOEK 

Few  things  perhaps  deserve  more  attention  in  making 
a  study  of  collectivism  than  the  diversity  of  work  which 
it  would  occasion.  Under  our  present  system  we  suffer 
much  from  the  monotony  of  our  employment.  One  of 
the  principal  objections  to  machinery  is  that  it  tends  to 
convert  the  man  who  attends  the  machine  himself  into 
a  machine,  and  this  tends  to  degrade  him  and  produce  a 
degenerate  type.  The  same  is  true  more  or  less  of  every 
unskilled  workingman ;  he  is  converted  by  the  character 
of  his  employment  into  little  better  than  a  beast  of  bur- 
den. The  same  is  true,  to  a  less  degree,  of  those  en- 
gaged in  mental  labour.  It  is  probably  the  exhaustion 
which  attends  mental  labour  that  contributes  very 
largely  to  the  infertility  of  those  engaged  in  this  kind 
of  work ;  moreover,  mental  labour,  attended,  as  it  usu- 
ally is  under  the  competitive  system,  with  worry  and 
excitement,  doubtless  contributes  to  the  nervous  pros- 
tration from  which  the  wealthy  suffer;  so  that  the 
wealthy,  after  having  devoted  more  hours  of  the  day 
than  they  ought  to  the  work  of  their  brains,  are  driven 
to  all  sorts  of  expedients  in  order  to  counteract  the 
mental  labour  by  reaction  of  muscle  and  limb.    There 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  321 

are  very  few  men  confined  to  crowded  court-houses  who 
do  not  feel  the  necessity  of  physical  exercise,  and  there 
are  still  fewer  who  can  afford  to  indulge  therein  until 
their  systems  are  already  broken  down  by  the  want  of  it. 
It  is  no  small  merit,  therefore,  of  the  collectivist  system, 
that  it  would  permit  rotation  of  tasks  so  that  no  man's 
whole  time  would  be  given  to  unskilled  labour  and  to  the 
work  of  attending  upon  the  same  machine,  neither  would 
it  be  confined  to  a  counting-house  or  government  office ; 
the  diversity  of  employment  so  occasioned  would  bene- 
fit not  only  every  individual,  but,  to  a  still  more  impor- 
tant degree,  the  entire  race.  There  is  little  hardship 
attending  two  hours  of  physical  labour,  or  two  hours  of 
factory  work,  or  two  hours  of  mental  labour,  but  there  is 
an  exhausting  and  degenerating  consequence  of  ten 
hours  devoted  to  any  one  of  these  things. 

Another  element  in  collectivism  which  should  be 
pointed  out  is  that  there  are  certain  occupations  that 
cannot  conveniently  be  distributed  among  different  citi- 
zens, for  example,  such  expert  work  as  civil  engineers 
or  that  of  physicians ;  these  cannot  be  intrusted  to  any 
but  men  specifically  educated  for  the  purpose ;  nor  is  it 
practicable  for  an  engineer  who  is  in  charge  of  a  great 
work  to  devote  thereto  only  a  few  hours  of  each  day ; 
nor  for  a  doctor  when  engaged  in  practice,  by  confining 
his  laboiu's  to  certain  hours  in  the  day,  to  expose  his  pa- 
tient to  the  danger  of  death  during  the  other  hours.  In 
these  occupations,  therefore,  a  somewhat  different  prin- 
ciple would  have  to  be  applied.  The  engineer  or  the 
physician  would  work  continuously  while  he  worked, 
and  being  engaged,  therefore,  twice  as  many  hours  in 
the  day  as  his  fellow-citizen,  he  would  be  entitled  to 
complete  rest  for  as  long  a  time  as  he  was  working 
twice  as  many  hours  as  the  rest. 

There  is  no  reason  why  this  principle  should  not  be 


322  COLLECTIVISM 

applied  to  other  men  as  well  as  to  engineers  or  physi- 
cians, and  why  a  man  or  woman  should  not  elect  for  a 
given  time  to  work  double  hours  or  extra  hours  in  order 
to  secure  a  corresponding  amount  of  complete  leisure. 

In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  inadvisable  to  point 
out  that  the  complete  leisure  men  would  enjoy  under 
these  conditions  during  a  part  of  the  year  would  give 
them  as  much  opportunity  for  enjoyment  as  they  now 
have.  It  would  enable  a  few  of  them  to  combine  in  a 
yachting  cruise ;  it  would  enable  another  one  of  them 
and  his  family  to  set  aside  certain  months  in  the  year 
for  embellishing  a  country  home ;  the  rent  for  which 
would  consist  of  so  many  hours  of  extra  work  to  the 
State.  In  other  words,  the  amount  of  direct  pleasure 
that  could  be  secured  under  a  collectivist  State  would 
depend  much  more  upon  the  skill  and  industry  of  its 
citizens  than  now.  For  now  the  large  majority  are  com- 
mitted to  lives  of  labour  from  which  pleasure  is  for  the 
most  part  excluded  altogether,  whatever  be  their  skill 
and  whatever  be  their  industry.  And  those  who,  on  the 
contrary,  have  leisure  for  enjoyment  cannot  but  be  sad- 
dened by  the  thought  —  if  the  thought  ever  occurs  to 
them  —  that  their  leisure  is  enjoyed  at  the  expense  of 
others. 

Having  now  briefly  considered  the  industrial  changes 
that  would  take  place  in  a  collectivist  State,  let  us  as 
briefly  consider  some  of  the  special  characteristics  of  its 
government  in  its  internal  affairs  first  and  its  external 
affairs  afterwards. 

As  has  been  already  suggested,  the  general  classifica- 
tion of  tasks  in  the  first  place,  and  the  attribution  of 
tliese  tasks  to  individuals  in  the  second  place,  must  be 
intrusted  to  somebody ;  and  it  is  the  fact  that  this  duty 
is  imposed  upon  government  that  constitutes  one  of  the 


SOME  FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  323 

chief  dangers  and  difficulties  of  collectivism.  At  the 
present  time  this  task  is  confided  to  no  one.  It  is  left 
to  competition.  Men  are  born  under  conditions  which 
make  the  opportunities  for  selecting  agreeable  and  re- 
munerative tasks  open  to  some  and  closed  to  others ;  but 
the  merit  of  the  competitive  system  is,  that  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  the  race  is  an  unjust  handicap, 
those  who  are  best  fitted  for  the  difficult  tasks  are 
generally  in  industrial  matters  intrusted  with  them,  the 
process  of  selection  being  an  automatic  one  similar  to 
that  adopted  by  nature.  It  is  because  the  competitive 
system  in  this  respect  is  a  natural  one  that  it  has  re- 
ceived the  support  and  admiration  of  those  who  believe 
in  natural  rights,  who  believe  that  the  system  of  nature 
is  the  best  system,  and  that  it  is  a  necessary  one. 

The  effort  of  this  book  has  been  to  demonstrate  that 
the  system  of  nature  is  not  the  best  one,  and  that  it  can 
be  in  large  part  replaced,  and  the  injustice  of  it  elimi- 
nated, by  wisdom. 

But  the  injustice  and  inequality  of  nature  can  be 
eliminated  only  by  wisdom  ;  it  can  never  be  eliminated 
by  folly ;  and  so  long  as  folly  prevails  in  a  community, 
so  long  collectivism  is  impossible.  To  the  extent,  how- 
ever, to  which  wisdom  prevails  in  a  community,  collec- 
tivism is  possible.  In  other  words,  if  we  can  conceive 
of  a  community  composed  entirely  of  men  who  appreci- 
ate the  difficulty  of  government;  who  appreciate  the 
inequalities  of  men,  and  the  better  fitness  of  some  men 
than  others  to  conduct  the  various  branches  of  govern- 
ment for  which  they  are  specially  fitted ;  who  recognise 
that  the  advantage  of  the  whole  community  and  of 
themselves  as  members  of  that  community  is  best  served 
by  putting  the  best  men  into  office ;  and  from  whom  the 
necessary  motive  for  office  has  been  eliminated  by  the 
substitution  of  co-operation  for  competition,  —  obviously 


324  COLLECTIVISM 

in  such  a  community  collectivism  would  be  the  best 
form  of  government.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  com- 
munity in  which  we  live  is  characterised,  on  the  con- 
trary, by  two  kinds  of  ignorance :  the  ignorance  of  the 
wealthy  minority,  which  does  not  believe  in  the  possi- 
bility of  collectivism  at  all ;  and  the  ignorance  of  the 
unwealthy  majority,  which  believes  not  only  that  collec- 
tivism is  possible,  but  that  it  is  possible  whatever  be  the 
men  intrusted  with  the  government  thereof.  Under 
these  conditions  we  cannot  but  regretfully  admit  that  an 
attempt  at  full-fledged  collectivism  to-day  would  be 
ruinously  premature.  Let  us  assume,  however,  that  it 
is  possible,  by  certain  steps  which  will  be  discussed  later, 
gradually  to  diminish  the  ignorance  of  both  the  wealthy 
minority  and  the  unwealthy  majority  so  that  the  one 
have  abandoned  the  theory  that  collectivism  is  impos- 
sible, and  the  other  have  learned  that  government  can 
safely  be  put  only  into  the  hands  of  men  specifically 
fitted  therefor.  In  such  case  what  would  be  the  machin- 
ery of  such  a  government,  and  in  what  particulars  would 
it  chiefly  differ  from  our  own  ? 

§  6.   Internal  Policy 

In  the  first  place  it  would  be  indispensable,  in  such  a 
community,  that  every  member  in  it  be  known,  and  all 
not  members  be  rigidly  excluded  from  its  benefits. 
This  would  mean  an  absolute  end  to  immigration  for 
the  purpose  of  permanent  residence  within  its  bordere. 

The  exclusion  of  all  foreigners  from  permanent  resi- 
dence would  be  necessitated  by  the  fact  that  every  mem- 
ber of  the  community  would  be  entitled  to  a  share  of  its 
income  as  well  as  a  vote  in  its  government.  This  share 
and  this  vote  would  become  so  valuable  that  every  man 
entitled  thereto  would  not  fail  to  secure  his  right  by  a 


SOME   FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  325 

proper  system  of  registration,  and  as  the  fundamental 
theory  of  such  a  community  would  be  that  no  man  should 
be  compelled  to  work  save  for  the  State,  which  was  itself 
organised  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  worked  for  it,  it 
would  not  be  consistent  with  this  principle  to  employ  the 
labour  of  others  who  were  not  members  of  the  community. 
For  this  reason,  therefore,  no  person  could  be  admitted 
to  naturalisation  except  under  such  peculiar  conditions  as 
now  give  rise  to  La  Grande  Naturalisation  in  France ; 
that  is  to  say,  by  a  decree  specifically  granting  naturali- 
sation for  extraordinary  services  in  each  case.  Inciden- 
tally this  would  settle  the  question  of  impoverishment 
by  accretion  of  population  from  outside,  or  degeneration 
of  citizenship  for  the  same  reason. 

This  policy  would  not  be  open  to  the  charge  of  imjust 
exclusiveness  because  it  would  proceed  upon  the  theory 
that  collectivism  was  the  highest  type  of  government, 
and  that  by  excluding  the  members  of  other  nations 
from  the  enjoyment  of  ours,  the  adoption  of  this  system 
by  other  nations  would  be  encouraged.  It  would  be  of 
interest  to  every  collectivist  State  to  encourage  the  adop- 
tion of  collectivism  in  other  States  as  will  be  seen  when 
we  come  to  regard  the  external  relations  of  a  collectivist 
State.  Moreover,  collectivism,  properly  understood,  is  a 
religion,  and  the  spread  of  this  religion  could  best  be 
served,  not  by  admitting  foreigners  within  the  State,  but 
by  compelling  them  to  remain  outside  and  converting 
them  into  apostles  of  this  religion  within  their  own. 

Every  adult  man  ^  in  a  collectivist  State  is  to  have  a 
vote  in  its  government,  and  the  exact  form  of  this  gov- 

1  It  is  believed  by  many  that  by  the  time  humanity  has  reached  the 
stage  which  fits  it  for  collectivism,  the  circumstances  attending  politics 
will  have  so  changed  as  to  eliminate  the  objections  which  now  exist  to 
female  suffrage.  But  whether  this  be  so  or  not  must  depend  upon  circum- 
stances, and  it  is  not  herein  intended  to  judge  of  these  circumstances 
beforehand- 


326  COLLECTIVISM 

ernment  would  not  differ  much  from  that  of  our  own. 
The  idea,  however,  that  such  a  government  would,  as 
imagined  by  Bebel,  be  entirely  free  from  party  or  faction, 
is  assuredly  a  mistake.  The  management  of  such  a 
government  as  that  of  the  United  States  under  a  collec- 
tivist  plan  would  resemble  the  management  of  an  enor- 
mous corporation  by  the  side  of  which  no  existing 
corporation  could  compare  in  magnitude.  The  deter- 
mination of  how  the  resources  of  this  vast  country  could 
best  be  employed  to  the  benefit  of  every  individual  in  it 
would  be  a  matter  not  only  of  great  difficulty,  but  one 
upon  which  opinions  would  be  found  to  differ.  The 
classification  of  tasks,  the  system  of  rotation,  the  prefer- 
ence given  to  one  class  of  tasks  over  another,  the  attri- 
bution of  tasks  to  individuals,  —  all  these  things  would 
give  rise  to  differences  of  opinion.  The  extent  to  which 
those  men  most  gifted  by  nature  would  be  permitted  to 
enjoy  benefits  obtained  through  their  superior  ability  to 
do  their  work  in  a  shorter  time,  or  through  the  rendering 
of  extraordinary  services  to  the  State,  would  doubtless 
give  rise,  not  only  to  differences  of  opinion,  but  to  differ- 
ences of  opinion  so  radical  as  to  create  parties  in  the  State. 
One  party  would  doubtless  contend  that  there  should  be 
no  option  whatever  given  to  the  more  gifted  individual, 
but  that  all  should  toil  the  same  number  of  hours  under 
as  nearly  as  possible  the  same  conditions,  whereas 
another  party  would  favour  the  granting  of  special  privi- 
leges to  persons  who  are  able  to  render  special  services 
to  the  State.  Again,  there  would  doubtless  arise  two 
questions  of  foreign  policy  to  which  we  shall  refer  pres- 
ently, upon  which  a  profound  difference  of  opinion 
would  exist ;  and  in  addition  to  differences  of  opinion 
there  would  be  perpetual  conflict  for  office,  arising  out 
of  the  desire  of  men  for  the  consideration  that  springs 
therefrom.     As  has  been  already  suggested,  the  struggle 


SOME   FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  327 

for  wealth  is  in  great  part  a  struggle  for  the  considera- 
tion and  power  that  arise  from  wealth ;  and  although 
we  may  eliminate  private  property  from  a  community, 
we  can  never  eliminate  the  desire  for  consideration  and 
the  desire  for  power,  and  both  of  these  are  inseparably 
connected  with  public  office. 

The  fact  that  this  struggle  would  subsist  in  a  collec- 
tivist  State  is  one  that  cuts  both  ways.  It  clearl}^  gives 
rise  to  the  possibility  that  faction  might  become  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  wreck  the  State ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  furnishes  the  argument  that  if  the  struggle  of 
faction  is  great  enough  to  make  it  possible  to  wreck  the 
State,  it  must  also  be  amply  sufficient  to  prevent  the 
uniformity  of  type  which  has  so  often  been  regarded  as 
hostile  to  it.  We  have  insisted  upon  the  extreme  im- 
portance of  avoiding  institutions  that  would  create  such 
uniformity  that  variability  would  disappear,  and  with 
variability  progress.  The  effect  of  collectivism,  however, 
would  not  be  to  create  such  uniformity  as  to  limit  the 
activities  of  men.  The  limit  imposed  upon  men  by  col- 
lectivism is  a  limit  to  the  accumulation  of  individual 
wealth.  No  limit  would  be  imposed  upon  the  work  of 
accumulating  wealth  for  the  State.  On  the  contrary, 
the  leisure  at  the  disposal  of  individuals  which  could  be 
devoted  to  this  work  of  accumulating  wealth  for  the 
State  would  be  much  larger  than  at  present,  and  the 
consideration  that  would  result  from  such  work  ought 
to  be  a  sufficient  motive  to  justify  it.  It  does  not  seem, 
therefore,  that  there  would  be  a  dangerous  diminution  of 
party  activity  in  a  collectivist  State.  One  element  of 
discord  and  hatred  would  be  eliminated  from  it ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  mercenary  motive.  That  the  mercenary  mo- 
tive has  heretofore  been  sufficient  to  divert  every  good 
institution  from  the  object  for  which  it  was  organised 
has  already  been  sufficiently  insisted  upon.     The  impor- 


328  COLLECTIVISM 

tance  of  eliminating  such  a  motive,  then,  is  obvious.  It 
is  submitted,  however,  that  if  this  mercenary  motive  be 
eliminated,  while  a  necessarily  degenerating  influence 
will  have  been  withdrawn  from  politics,  politics  will  still 
remain  sufficiently  animated  by  differences  of  opinion 
to  prevent  the  uniformity  inconsistent  with  a  progres- 
sive type.  It  may  be  recalled  that  in  discussing  the  ques- 
tion of  variability  the  suggestion  was  made  that,  until 
man  became  perfect,  variability  would  be  indispensable 
to  perfectibility.  It  may  now  be  added,  as  a  corollary 
to  this  statement,  that,  until  man  becomes  perfect,  there 
will  be  faction  in  the  State.  When  man  is  perfect,  if 
that  time  ever  comes,  there  will  be  need  neither  for 
faction  nor  for  variability. 

§  7.   ExTEENAL  Policy 

It  must  be  remembered  that  a  collectivist  State  will 
still  be  subject  to  competition  of  other  States,  or  at  any 
rate  it  will  be  subject  to  such  competition  until  all  the 
other  States  in  the  world  are  collectivist  also.  As  the 
likelihood  of  this  last  taking  place  is  extremely  remote, 
we  shall  have  to  assume  that  if  a  collectivist  State  is  sur- 
rounded by  other  States  which  are  not  collectivist,  there 
will  between  these  States  be  competition. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  task  of  steering  a  collectivist 
State  through  the  dangerous  channels  of  diplomatic  re- 
lations with  States  that  are  not  themselves  collectivist 
would  be  a  difficult,  if  not  an  impossible  one,  and  in 
this  respect  some  States  are  infinitely  better  situated 
than  others.  The  problems  presented  to  such  a  country 
as  that  of  the  British  Empire  would  in  such  case  be  of 
enormous  magnitude.  To  us  in  the  United  States,  who 
are  self-supporting,  the  task  could  hardly  be  regarded 
as  a  difficult  one,  and  yet  the  policy  to  be  adopted  in 


SOME  FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  329 

various  contingencies  would  be  likely  to  give  rise  to 
considerable  differences  of  opinion.  The  foreign  com- 
plication in  wliich  we  were  lately  involved  by  the  mis- 
government  of  Cuba  furnishes  a  case  in  point.  That 
part  of  the  community  with  whom  indignation  predomi- 
nates would  urge  a  collectivist  State,  as  in  ours,  to 
intervene ;  but  in  a  collectivist  State,  as  in  ours,  there 
would  be  a  part  of  the  community  that  would  compare 
the  evil  that  would  result  from  intervention  with  the  evil 
to  which  intervention  would  put  an  end ;  under  the  in- 
fluence of  this  comparison  it  would  decide  that  a  higher 
wisdom  required  us  to  abstain  from  an  intervention  that 
was  as  likely  to  increase  bloodshed  as  to  diminish  it. 
Moreover,  a  collectivist  State  ought  to  succeed  in  limit- 
ing moral  responsibility  more  intelligently  than  we  do. 
Among  many  of  our  best  citizens  there  appears  to  be 
no  sense  of  limitation  whatever.  Whenever  evil  exists, 
they  regard  themselves  to  a  certain  extent  responsible 
for  it.  They  are  as  willing  to  dash  our  armies  against 
the  Turk  in  Armenia  as  against  the  Spaniards  in  Cuba, 
and  are  willing  to  neglect  the  arab  in  their  own  streets 
for  the  Bedouin  in  the  desert.  A  collectivist  would  be 
permitted  to  apply  a  different  principle ;  his  argument 
would  be  this :  the  only  political  institutions  consis- 
tent with  the  doctrines  of  Christ  are  those  of  a  collec- 
tive form  of  government,  because  these  are  the  only 
principles  consistent  with  peace  it  would  be  inconsistent, 
by  violating  peace,  to  force  these  principles  upon  other 
men.  It  would  be  contrary  to  our  principles  to  do  so. 
What  we  can  do  is  to  present  an  example  to  other  men 
for  other  men  to  follow,  and  we  shall  not  be  tempted  by 
any  consideration  to  part  from  the  doctrines  of  peace 
except  in  the  defence  of  the  institutions  which  religion 
has  taught  us  to  create  and  cherish.  Millions  for  de- 
fence, then,  but  not  one  life,  not  one  cent,  for  aggression. 


330  COLLECTIVISM 


§  8.   Value,  Exchange  Value,  Currency, 
AND  Foreign  Trade 

Existing  works  on  "  Socialism "  devote  much  time 
and  space  to  the  discussion  of  value.  But  the  form  of 
collectivism  proposed  in  the  foregoing  pages  renders 
the  discussion  of  value  unnecessary.  Before  proceed- 
ing to  the  explanation  of  this,  it  should  be  pointed  out 
that  political  economists  are  not  concerned  with  a  defi- 
nition of  the  word  "value,"  but  only  with  that  of  the 
words  "exchange  value;"  that  is  to  say,  in  order  to 
have  correct  notions  as  to  the  economic  forces  engaged 
in  the  industrial  field,  it  becomes  important  to  determine 
what  elements  enter  into  determining  the  exchange 
value  of  a  commodity.  Exchange  value  is  clearly  de- 
termined primarily  by  supply  and  demand,  or,  in  other 
words,  when  supply  is  small  and  demand  great,  ex- 
change value  rises ;  whereas  when  supply  is  large  and 
demand  small,  exchange  value  sinks.  One  of  the  in- 
conveniences of  this  obvious  fact  is  that  it  applies  as 
much  to  wages  as  to  any  other  commodity,  and  political 
economists  are  therefore  obliged  to  admit  that,  under 
existing  industrial  conditions,  the  wages  of  men  and 
women,  upon  which  their  very  life  depends,  are  a  math- 
ematical result  of  the  relation  between  supply  and 
demand,  and  that  during  the  occasional  crises  that 
characterise  our  present  industrial  system  the  periodical 
increase  of  supply  and  diminution  of  demand  cannot 
do  otherwise  but  drive  men  to  beggary  and  women  to 
prostitution. 

There  is,  however,  a  limit  to  the  minimum  exchange 
value  of  an  article,  and  this  limit  is  cost  of  production ; 
in  other  words,  exchange  value  cannot  long  remain  be- 
low cost  of  production,  and  therefore  cost  of   produc- 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  331 

tion  must  enter  as  an  element  in  determining  exchange 
value. 

The  question  is  still  further  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  exchange  value  is  measured  by  a  medium  which 
itself  varies  in  exchange  value.  In  other  words,  gold 
and  silver,  which  serve  to  state  in  figures  the  exchange 
value  of  commodities,  are  themselves  subject  to  varia- 
tion in  value,  and  it  becomes  difficult,  therefore,  to  de- 
termine in  any  given  case  whether  a  modification  of  the 
price  of  a  commodity  is  due  to  a  modification  of  the  ex- 
change value  of  the  commodity,  or  to  a  modification  of 
the  exchange  value  of  the  gold  or  silver  which  state  in 
figures  its  market  price.  These  questions  are  not  raised 
here  for  the  purpose  of  solution,  but  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  pointing  out  that  in  the  form  of  collectivism 
proposed  in  the  foregoing  pages  they  have  little  or  no 
importance,  and  in  order  to  make  this  clear  it  becomes 
important  to  state  with  more  accuracy  than  has  hereto- 
fore been  stated  what  machinery  will,  in  the  proposed 
collectivist  State,  replace  the  existing  system  of  ex- 
change and  circulating  medium. 

In  discussing  this  subject  we  must  begin  by  carefully 
distinguishing  between  internal  and  external  industrial 
conditions.  Let  us  begin  first  with  Internal  Industrial 
Conditions : 

(a)  Internal  Industrial  Conditions 

The  essential  feature  of  collectivism  is  that  in  its  inter- 
nal industrial  conditions  there  is  little  exchange,  little 
trade,  and  no  circulating  medium.  All  adult  individuals, 
male  and  female,  with  the  exception  of  paupers  and 
criminals,  are  entitled,  by  virtue  of  the  compulsory 
work  that  they  do  for  the  State,  to  a  certain  proportion 
or  dividend  of  the  State  income,  and  this  proportion  is 
delivered  to  them  in  the  shape  of   dividend   coupons, 


332  COLLECTIVISM 

divided  into  fractional  parts  in  much  the  same  manner 
as  our  own  currency.^  These  dividend  coupons  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  labour  cheques  proposed  by 
Karl  Marx  or  Rodbertus,  or  with  the  labour  exchange 
notes  that  were  actually  used  by  Josiah  Warren  and 
Robert  Owen.  Neither  do  they  represent  gold  or  credit, 
as  bank  notes  do  under  our  conditions,  nor  are  they 
any  longer,  therefore,  subject  to  the  fluctuations  in  the 
value  of  gold  and  silver  and  credit,  whether  due  to  ac- 
cidents of  discovery,  to  interested  legislation,  or  to  com- 
mercial panic.  A  dividend  coupon  means  nothing  but 
that  the  individual  to  whom  it  is  delivered  has  become 
entitled,  by  virtue  of  the  compulsory  labour  he  has  done, 
to  the  fractional  parts  of  the  State  income  expressed 
therein.  These  dividend  coupons  ought,  unless  the 
State  be  bankrupt  or  less  productive  than  any  State  now 
in  existence,  to  be  sufficient  to  assure  to  every  adult 
individual,  not  a  pauper  or  a  criminal,  the  necessaries 
of  life.  The  more  prosperous  the  State,  the  larger  the 
amount  of  comforts  and  luxuries  these  dividend  cou- 
pons will  assure. 

If  the  preceding  estimate  of  the  economy  of  a  coUec- 
tivist  system  is  at  all  correct,  the  degree  of  comfort  and 
luxury  such  a  system  should  furnish  every  individual 
ought  to  be  considerable. 

In  addition  to  the  dividend  coupons  issued  against 
compulsory  labom-  just  explained,  another  variety  of  cou- 
pons will  be  furnished  to  every  individual  who  chooses 
to  contribute  any  part  of  his  leisure  to  the  benefit  of  the 
State.  These  might  conveniently  be  termed  "  volun- 
tary labour  cheques."  It  has  already  been  explained 
that  the  State  ought  not,  under  a  collectivist  system, 

1  How  these  dividend  coupons  are  calculated  is  explained  in  chap. 


SOME   FEATURES  OF  COLLECTIVISM  333 

to  exact  more  than  half  of  a  day  from  every  adult 
individual  in  it.  Every  such  individual  in  it,  then, 
would  have  half  of  every  day  at  his  or  her  disposal. 
The  use  to  which  this  leisure  will  be  put  will  obviously 
depend  upon  the  taste  of  every  individual.  The  artist 
will  devote  it  to  art ;  the  poet  to  literature  ;  the  scien- 
tific man  to  science  ;  the  statesman  to  politics ;  others, 
and  even  the  foregoing  at  times,  will  devote  this  leisure 
to  increase  their  material  comforts  ;  as,  for  example,  — 
the  construction  of  a  house  in  the  country ;  the  secur- 
ing of  instruments  of  amusement,  or  of  a  longer  vaca- 
tion than  the  State  habitually  affords.  Through  the 
instrumentality  of  these  voluntary  labour  cheques,  the 
industrious  individual  will  secure  an  advantasre  over 
the  less  industrious.  Through  the  thrift  with  which 
both  kinds  of  labour  cheques  are  used,  the  thrifty  will 
have  an  advantage  over  the  unthrifty.  Under  this  plan, 
therefore,  the  objection  that  collectivism  will  necessarily 
reduce  all  men  and  women  to  one  dead  level  falls  to  the 
ground.  Every  man  willing  to  work  will  have  work, 
and  will  receive  for  that  work  an  assured  and  sufficient 
share  in  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life ;  but  be- 
tween the  man  who  does  least  for  the  State  and  the 
man  who  does  most  for  the  State  there  will  exist  a  dif- 
ference in  the  positive  pleasures  of  life  which  ought 
amply  to  satisfy  the  industrious  without  giving  the 
unindustrious  legitimate  cause  for  discontent. 

Those  who  attack  most  successfully  this  scheme  of 
distribution  point  out  that  if  dividend  coupons  are 
transferable  there  will  be  the  same  opportunity  for  ac- 
cumulation of  dividend  coupons  as  for  accumulation  of 
money,  and  that  by  virtue  of  this  accumulation  those 
who  accumulate  will  be  able  to  reduce  to  subjection 
those  who  do  not  accumulate.  They  also  point  out  that 
after  the  system  of  accumulation  has  operated  during  a 


334  COLLECTIVISM 

sufficient  time  it  might  become  of  a  character  to  bank- 
rupt the  State,  for  the  State  being  prepared  only  to  sat- 
isfy every  year  the  dividend  coupons  distributed  during 
that  year,  and  calculating  every  year  its  income  upon 
the  basis  of  actual  wealth  and  actual  population,  might 
one  day  find  itself  called  upon  suddenly  to  honour  a 
vast  accumulation  of  dividend  coupons  in  the  hands  of 
the  few  thrifty,  and  thus  render  it  impossible  for  the 
State  to  furnish  to  the  unthrifty  even  the  necessaries  of 
life.  These  objections  seem  fatal  to  a  coUectivist  sys- 
tem, and  no  form  of  collectivism  to  which  they  apply 
would  seem  likely  to  survive ;  and  yet  they  depend  for 
their  efficacy  upon  a  condition  which,  under  the  pro- 
posed coUectivist  system,  would  not  exist.  They  take 
for  granted  that  dividend  coupons  are  to  be  transfer- 
able. They  take  for  granted  that  under  a  coUectivist 
system  dividend  coupons  are  capable  of  accumulation. 
It  cannot  be  too  emphatically  insisted  upon,  then,  that 
dividend  coupons,  under  the  proposed  coUectivist  State, 
would  be  neither  transferable  nor  valid  for  more  than  a 
stipulated  period.  Inasmuch  as  it  is  the  specific  inten- 
tion of  collectivism  to  prevent  traffic  and  to  prevent  ac- 
cumulation, it  is  obvious  that  dividend  coupons  issued 
for  this  purpose  must  be  neither  transferable  nor  valid 
for  more  than  a  limited  period.  The  instinct  of  accu- 
mulation for  the  benefit  of  one's  self  is  the  very  instinct 
which  a  coUectivist  State  is  intended  to  discourage  and 
destroy.  The  instinct  of  accumulating  for  the  benefit 
of  the  community  is  the  instinct  which  collectivism  is 
intended  to  encourage  and  promote.  Centuries  of  self- 
ish accumulation  have  created  in  us  a  habit  with  which 
none  of  us  are  happy,  and  without  which,  nevertheless, 
we  would  be  unhappy.  What  man  needs  for  his  happi- 
ness is  to  escape  from  the  despotism  of  this  instinct  of 
selfish  accumulation.     This  instinct  is  so  essential  to  our 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  335 

present  system  that  the  whole  economy  of  our  State 
would  go  to  pieces  were  it  not  to  exist,  and  it  has  become 
so  far  a  part  of  the  fibre  of  every  thinking  man  and 
woman  that  we  find  it  diificult  to  conceive  of  a  condi- 
tion of  things  which  would  render  the  exercise  of  this 
instinct  unnecessary  and  immoral.  But  inasmuch  as 
the  scheme  of  collectivism  has  for  its  express  purpose 
to  assure  to  every  man  a  fair  share  of  the  necessary  com- 
forts of  life,  not  only  during  his  working  years,  but  also 
during  that  old  age  in  which  no  work  can  be  done,  and 
inasmuch  as  the  economy  of  the  collectivist  plan  herein 
proposed  seems  sufficient  to  justify  the  belief  that  this 
fair  share  of  necessaries  and  comforts  can  be  assured  to 
all  the  citizens  of  a  collectivist  State  at  one-half  of  the 
labour  now  employed  in  securing  it  only  to  a  few,  there 
is  left  under  the  collectivist  system  neither  necessity 
nor  motive  for  accumulation. 

Although  it  is  important  that  dividend  coupons  which 
are  issued  against  compulsory  labour  applied  to  the 
production  and  distribution  of  necessaries  should  not  be 
transferable,  there  is  no  reason  why  such  a  restriction 
should  be  put  on  voluntary  labour  cheques.  The  essen- 
tial task  of  collectivism  is  to  assure  to  every  man  and 
woman  a  real  as  well  as  nominal  liberty  of  contract  by 
assuring  the  necessaries  of  life  to  all  in  exchange  for  a 
few  hours  of  labour.  As  regards  the  hours  of  labour 
required  for  producing  necessaries,  liberty  is  impossible 
in  any  condition  of  life  save  for  a  favoured  few ;  but  as 
regards  the  hours  of  labour  voluntarily  undertaken  to 
increase  the  pleasures  of  life,  liberty  is  possible  for  all 
under  the  collectivist  plan,  because  under  this  plan  no 
one  man  is  able  to  dictate  terms  to  another  thi'ough  con- 
trol of  the  means  of  subsistence.  Once,  therefore,  the 
means  of  subsistence  are  assured,  and  thereby  liberty  of 
contract,  every  man  is  free  to  offer  services  or  return 


336  COLLECTIVISM 

them  according  to  the  terras  offered.  Accumulation 
and  exploitation  are  therefore  not  to  be  feared  as  regards 
voluntary  service  offered  to  obtain  the  pleasures  and 
luxuries  of  life,  as  they  are  to  be  feared  in  the  securing 
of  necessaries.  To  secure  necessaries  a  man  must  work ; 
to  secure  pleasures  or  luxuries  he  may  or  may  not  work 
as  he  likes.  For  this  reason  voluntary  labour  cheques 
may  be  transferable,  whereas  dividend  coupons  may  not. 
This  matter  is  more  fully  explained  in  Chapter  V.  on  the 
practical  working  of  collectivism.^ 

The  dividend  coupon,  then,  is  not  money,  one  of  the 
essential  uses  of  which  is  to  enable  one  man  to  accumu- 
late with  facility  by  substituting  for  divers  bulky  com- 
modities one  single  commodity  that  is  not  bulky  and 
can  therefore  be  easily  accumulated.  Dividend  coupons 
simply  constitute  the  machinery  through  which  every 
man  will  take  the  income  to  which  he  is  entitled  in  the 
shape  in  which  he  desires  it,  so  that  every  man  may 
spend  his  income  in  the  way  most  suited  to  his  taste : 
one  in  the  luxuries  of  the  table ;  another  in  beautiful 
raiment ;  a  third  in  scientific  investigation  ;  a  fourth  in 
music  or  art  or  literature ;  a  fifth  in  out-of-door  exer- 
cise, —  leaving  to  every  man  that  most  precious  of  all 
human  liberties,  the  right  to  apply  the  product  of  his 
labour  as  suits  best  his  own  individual  taste.  By  this 
method,  then,  collectivism  will  control  a  few  hours  of 
every  man's  day,  but  the  remaining  hours  will  be  at  his 
disposal  for  the  satisfaction  of  individual  tastes  in  a 
manner  which  no  civilisation  up  to  the  present  time  has 
been  able  to  compass.  This  is  the  true  measure  of  in- 
dividualism, for  it  is  an  individualism  which  assures  the 
maximum  of  liberty  to  every  man,  with  a  minimum  of 
risk  and  a  minimum  of  inconvenience  to  all. 

1  See  pp.  410-412. 


SOME   FEATURES   OF   COLLECTIVISM  337 

(h)  External  Industrial  Conditions^  or  Foreign  Trade 

It  is  a  somewhat  singular  fact  that  most  writers  on 
"  Socialism "  take  it  for  granted,  that  in  a  collectivist 
State  foreign  trade  would  cease  to  exist.  Professor 
Flint  1  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  Socialists,  being  obliged 
to  admit  that  foreign  trade  would  disappear  in  a  so- 
cialist community,  have  entered  upon  a  conspiracy  of 
silence  on  the  subject,  owing  to  their  inability  to  face 
the  difficulties  which  this  disappearance  of  foreign 
trade  is  likely  to  occasion." 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  to  what  the  idea  that 
foreign  trade  must  disappear  in  a  collectivist  com- 
munity is  due.  Every  community  is  likely  to  produce 
more  of  an  article  than  it  can  itself  consume,  and  to 
be  able  to  engage  advantageously  in  exchange  with 
other  nations  of  its  surplus  production  for  theirs.  The 
only  difference  between  foreign  trade  as  practised  by 
our  industrial  State  and  that  practised  by  the  proposed 
collectivist  State  is  that  in  our  case  individuals  carry 
on  foreign  trade,  whereas  in  the  proposed  collectivist 
State  the  State  alone  would  carry  it  on;  and  in  order  to 
carry  on  this  trade,  gold  would  remain  an  important 
element  in  the  wealth  of  the  State.  Indeed,  the  wealth 
of  the  State  would  be  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  inas- 
much as  gold  would  no  longer  have  any  use  as  currency 
within  the  State,  the  gold  employed  under  existing  in- 
dustrial conditions  for  currency  within  the  State  would 
all  of  it  be  available  for  the  purchase  of  commodities 
abroad ;  and  with  the  view  of  being  able  to  continue  the 
purchase  of  commodities  abroad,  the  State  would  have 
an  interest  in  mining  gold  if  it  produced  gold ;  or,  if  it 
did  not  produce  gold,  in  producing  articles  which  could 
readily    be    exchanged    for    foreign    products.       The 

1  "Socialism,"  p.  246,  by  Prof.  Robert  Flint. 
22 


338  COLLECTIVISM 

machinery  of  foreign  trade  would  in  no  way  be 
changed,  although  it  would  be  relieved  of  the  pressure 
which  now  forces  prosperous  nations  to  conquer  new 
markets  by  the  perpetual  tendency,  under  the  profit  sys- 
tem, of  production  to  outstrip  purchasing  power;  be- 
cause in  a  collectivist  community,  the  moment  it  was 
found  that  a  given  commodity  was  being  produced  in 
larger  quantities  than  either  the  State  itself  could  con- 
sume, or  other  nations  be  willing  to  purchase,  the  State 
could  immediately  diminish  the  extent  of  this  manufac- 
ture and  apply  the  labour  theretofore  employed  by  it  to 
industries  for  which  there  existed  a  greater  demand. 

Some  authors  ^  think  that  the  State  will  find  it  difficult 
to  put  a  money  value  on  products  sold  to  foreigners  be- 
cause of  the  absence  of  the  use  of  money  to  determine 
cost.  This  objection  seems  to  indicate  a  failure  to 
grasp  the  real  facts  of  the  case.  The  dividend  coupon 
proposed  will  be  a  far  more  efficient  method  for  deter- 
mining cost  than  the  present  system  of  coin,  because  coin 
is  at  present  subject  to  variation  in  value,  whereas  no 
such  variation  in  value  will  interfere  with  the  calculation 
of  the  cost  in  labour  of  every  commodity.  Moreover, 
foreign  trade  will  be  determined,  under  a  collectivist 
State,  as  in  ours,  by  foreign  demand,  cost  of  production 
being  serviceable  only  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the 
minimum  price  at  which  it  will  be  advantageous  to 
export. 

1  Graham,  "Socialism  New  and  Old,"  p.  208. 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     339 


CHAPTER  IV 
objections  to  collectivism   discussed 

§  1.   That  it  Would  Promote  Over-population 

One  of  the  formidable  objections  made  to  collectivism  is 
that  it  would  furnish  no  check  to  population ;  and  that 
therefore  the  principle  announced  by  Malthus  would 
eventually  prove  ruinous  to  the  State.  To  this  objec- 
tion there  are  many  answers.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  no 
longer  contested  that  it  is  not  the  well-to-do  who  most 
increase  the  population,  but,  on  the  contrary,  those  who 
are  reduced  to  a  state  of  such  misery  that  no  increase  of 
responsibility  can  make  the  misery  much  worse.  In 
other  words,  reckless  fertility  is  the  result  of  despair, 
and  infertility  among  the  poor  is  due  more  often  to  phy- 
sical degeneration  than  to  prudence.  Malthusians  will 
answer  that  in  our  State  prudence  checks  population  in  a 
large  class ;  whereas  under  collectivism  prudence  would 
not  operate  at  all.  To  this  a  very  simple  answer  can  be 
made.  There  is  a  form  of  collectivism  which  proposes 
to  give  to  every  man  unconditionally  according  to  his 
needs,  to  which  this  objection  would  apply ;  but  nothing 
would  be  easier,  under  the  form  of  collectivism  here 
proposed,  than  to  give  a  prudential  motive  for  the  check 
of  population,  which  would  probably  be  far  more  effec- 
tual than  that  which  exists  under  existing  conditions. 
In  other  words,  a  coUectivist  State  could  lay  down  the 
principle  that  no  person  was  entitled  to  a  full  share  of 
the   coUectivist  income   until  he   attained   the  age  of 


340  COLLECTIVISM 

twenty-one  years ;  that  prior  to  that  time,  and  as  soon 
as  a  child  is  born,  the  father  would  have  to  furnish  hours 
of  work,  in  excess  of  those  which  he  owed  as  an  indi- 
vidual, for  every  child  brought  by  him  into  the  world. 
It  is  submitted  that  this  plan  would  operate  as  a  check 
to  population  as  great  as  that  which  now  exists,  because 
whereas  under  our  present  system  it  is  the  woman  who 
bears  the  immediate  brunt  of  every  child  that  is  born, 
under  this  plan  the  man  would  at  once  bear  a  share  of 
it  also;  and  as  the  man  is  the  one  of  the  two  most  re- 
sponsible for  increase  of  population,  it  is  upon  him  that 
it  is  most  important  that  a  check  should  fall. 

In  addition  to  the  check  herein  proposed,  and  which 
could  be  made  more  or  less  by  the  State  according  as 
there  was  a  tendency  in  the  population  to  increase  too 
fast  or  to  diminish  too  fast,  we  have  to  take  into  con- 
sideration the  fact  often  already  suggested,  that  the 
enhancement  of  the  position  of  women  which  character- 
ises this  century  has  already  been  found  to  do  much  to 
determine  this  question  of  population.  The  more  of  a 
drudge  a  woman  is,  the  less  she  has  to  say  on  this  sub- 
ject: the  higher  the  part  she  plays,  the  more  she  has  to 
say  upon  it;  and  as  the  collectivist  form  of  government 
has  for  its  direct  purpose  to  make  the  benefit  of  the  State 
serve  the  benefit  of  the  individual,  thereby  bringing 
about  an  equality  between  individuals  which  cannot 
exist  under  the  competitive  system,  women  will  share 
in  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  collectivism  more 
than  men;  for  they  will  no  longer  suffer  from  the  in- 
dustrial inequality  to  which,  under  our  existing  laws 
and  customs,  they  are  subjected. 

Because,  therefore,  there  will  be  no  element  of  the 
population  reduced  by  recklessness  to  disregard  the  ques- 
tion of  population ;  and  because,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
sex  most  responsible  for  increase  of  population  that  will, 


OBJECTIONS  TO    COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     341 

under  the  system  proposed,  suffer  the  immediate  conse- 
quence thereof;  and  because  the  enhancement  of  the 
position  of  women  who  suffer  most  therefrom  will  give 
them  more  to  say  on  the  subject,  —  it  is  likely  that  a 
State  of  collectivism  will  have  as  much,  if  not  more, 
control  over  population  than  ours. 

§  2.  That  Collectivism  Would  Be  Destructive 

OF  the  Home 

The  popular  notion  that  collectivism  would  tend  to 
break  up  the  home  is  founded  on  the  vague  notions  of 
such  a  common  table  as  existed  in  Sparta,  and  upon  the 
better-founded  fear  arising  from  the  fact  that  many  of 
those  who  to-day  preach  socialism  denounce  the  insti- 
tution of  marriage.  For  the  first  of  these  two  notions 
there  is  no  ground  whatever,  as  a  common  table  forms 
no  part  of  the  proposed  collectivism.  As  regards  the 
second,  it  is  a  lamentable  fact  that  some  of  those  who 
most  loudly  advocate  collectivism,  and  most  urgently 
demand  that  it  should  be  immediately  instituted,  tend  to 
regard  collectivism  as  a  system  under  which  they  will  be 
relieved  of  every  restraint,  whether  upon  lust  or  upon 
vindictiveness.  The  greatest  danger,  indeed,  that  we 
have  to  confront  is  the  possibility  of  a  collectivist  ex- 
periment being  undertaken  upon  these  lines. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  collectivism  is 
consistent  only  with  a  high  degree  of  self-control;  it 
must  fail,  and  fail  ruinously,  if  attempted  upon  the 
principle  of  self-surrender.  The  very  fact  that  some 
partisans  of  collectivism  are  enemies  of  the  institution 
of  marriage  is  perhaps  the  most  serious  reason  why  it  is 
indispensable  that  the  subject  of  collectivism  be  earnestly 
studied  by  the  conservative  element  in  the  community ; 
for  no  greater  calamity  could  fall   to  any  State   than 


342  COLLECTIVISM 

that  its  government  should  be  handed  over  to  men  who, 
by  destroying  the  institution  of  marriage,  would  break 
down  the  very  prop  upon  which  all  sound  government 
rests. 

It  has  been  repeated,  perhaps,  too  often  that  marriage 
and  the  family  which  results  from  marriage  furnish  in 
themselves  the  first  and  best  school  for  self-control,  and 
for  all  the  social  qualities.  Indeed,  one  of  the  indict- 
ments made  against  the  industrial  system  is  that  it  tends 
to  break  up  family  relations.  In  many  of  the  cotton  in- 
dustries in  the  United  States  the  employment  of  women 
has  become  so  universal  that  men  have  been  driven  by  it 
to  herd  in  lumber  camps;  and  the  most  important 
centres  of  cotton  industry  have,  through  this  exclusion 
of  the  men,  received  the  name  of  "she  towns;"  and 
even  when  the  sexes  are  not  separated,  the  employment 
of  women  in  factories  has  caused  the  housewife  to  dis- 
appear; the  result  being  that  families  working  in  facto- 
ries do  not  have  homes  of  their  own,  but  live  in  large 
boarding-houses,  thus  leading,  not  only  to  relaxation  of 
family  ties,  but  to  a  diminution  of  parental  authority. 

Not  only,  however,  does  the  industrial  system  to-day 
tend  among  working  people  to  break  up  the  home,  but 
it  is  itself  responsible  for  many  of  the  evils  which 
attend  marriage,  such  as  those  that  result  from  "ma- 
nages de  convenance "  and  those  that  result  from 
prostitution. 

The  evils  that  attend  marriages  that  are  made  for 
money  have  already  been  treated  at  some  length;  it 
does  not  seem  necessary,  therefore,  here  to  do  more  than 
recall  the  fact  that  although  all  marital  unhappincss 
does  not  by  any  means  inevitably  result  from  these,  a 
great  deal  of  it  undoubtedly  does;  moreover,  the  preva- 
lence of  the  idea  that  marriage  can  be  resorted  to  for  any 
other  purpose   than   the   life   association   of  men  and 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM   DISCUSSED      343 

women  who  love  one  another,  creates  confused  notions 
about  marriage  which  tend  to  obscure  and  diminish  its 
sacramental  character.  With  the  disappearance  of  the 
sordid  motive  which  now  degrades  the  approaches  to 
marriage,  it  would  be  easier  to  maintain  the  high  ideals 
of  married  life  that  would  contribute  most  to  making 
unhappiness  in  it  improbable. 

But  the  greatest  boon  which  collectivism  would  bestow 
on  the  institution  of  marriage  is  that  it  would  put  an 
end  to  prostitution.  In  an  earlier  part  of  this  book  it 
was  promised  that  the  question  how  prostitution  could 
be  prevented  would,  in  its  proper  context,  be  examined. 
The  subject  is  not  an  easy  or  agreeable  one  to  treat;  it 
will  be  disposed  of,  therefore,  in  the  fewest  words  possi- 
ble. If,  however,  the  treatment  of  it  is  summary,  it  is 
not  so  because  the  subject  itself  is  unimportant.  On 
the  contrary,  if  it  is  true  that  collectivism  would  put  an 
end  to  prostitution,  this  alone,  for  those  who  can  com- 
prehend the  horrors  of  it,  ought  to  justify  the  sacrifice 
necessary  to  the  realisation  of  it.  If  it  is  clear  that 
our  present  competitive  system  is  responsible  for  the 
evil  and  injustice  to  both  sexes  that  result  from 
prostitution,  then  the  maintenance  of  this  system  is, 
so  far  as  every  one  of  us  by  indifference  tolerates  it, 
nothing  less  than  a  crime. 

We  must  begin  by  making  ourselves  clear  as  to  what 
prostitution  is. 

Mere  promiscuity  of  sexual  relation  does  not  consti- 
tute prostitution,  for  many  a  woman  is  unfaithful  to 
her  husband  many  times  without  losing  social  consider- 
ation, provided  only  she  conduct  herself  with  sufficient 
discretion  to  avoid  scandal. 

Nor  does  sexual  intercourse  for  money  constitute 
prostitution;  for  then  prostitution  would  include  all 
those  who  marry  for  money.     The  real  definition  of  a 


344  COLLECTIVISM 

prostitute  is  a  woman  who  has  intercourse  both  promis- 
cuously and  for  a  money  reward.  In  other  words,  both 
promiscuity  and  gain  must  be  united  in  order  to  consti- 
tute a  prostitute. 

Now  it  is  clear  that  in  a  collectivist  State,  because 
every  woman  in  it  received  the  same  income,  she  would 
be  lifted  by  this  income  above  the  necessity  of  prostitu- 
tion for  a  livelihood. 

Prostitution  is  generally  the  direct  result  of  the  dis- 
grace put  upon  a  woman  by  loss  of  virtue.  She  is  turned 
out  of  her  home  and  out  of  her  legitimate  employment. 
She  has  then  but  one  recourse.  It  is  sometimes  due  to 
lack  of  employment;  and  sometimes  to  the  greater 
facility  prostitution  affords  for  making  a  livelihood  with 
the  least  labour.  In  all  these  cases  the  "  primum  mobile  " 
is  the  making  of  a  livelihood.  As  collectivism  would 
remove  this  "primum  mobile,"  as  collectivism  would 
assure  a  livelihood  to  every  woman  upon  the  single  con- 
dition of  her  performing  her  allotted  work,  there  would 
be  practically  no  motive  for  prostitution.  If  she  refused 
to  perform  her  allotted  task  she  would  become  a  pauper 
—  but  a  prostitute  never.  For  a  collectivist  State,  as 
has  already  been  stated,  would  segregate  paupers,  and 
not  leave  them  to  demoralise  its  citizens  by  profligacy 
and  prostitution. 

It  may  be  objected  that  society  keeps  itself  pure  by 
casting  out  women  of  loose  character,  and  that  an  inno- 
cent girl  should  not  be  called  upon  to  work  at  a  factory 
side  by  side  with  one  who  will  deprave  her  if  she  can. 
An  exhaustive  answer  to  this  question  would  involve  a 
study  of  the  special  conditions  of  each  State,  the  laws 
of  each  State,  the  mental  attitude  of  the  people,  their 
tolerance  of  morality  or  their  intolerance  of  it.  It  is  a 
problem  common  to  every  society  and  not  to  the  collec- 
tivist society  alone.     This  exhaustive  study  it  is  not  the 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     345 

province  of  this  book  to  undertake ;  it  must  be  disposed 
of,  therefore,  by  the  following  few  general  considerations. 

In  the  society  of  the  wealthy  to-day  we  are  constantly 
confronted  by  the  same  problem  as  would  be  presented 
by  a  collectivist  State,  in  which  prostitution  would  be 
rendered  impossible  by  State  employment  regardless  of 
morality.  In  other  words,  wealth  does  for  the  wealthy 
class  what  collectivism  would  do  for  the  unwealthy ;  it 
makes  prostitution  improbable  if  not  impossible.  And 
the  wealthy  manage  to  solve  the  problem  of  promis- 
cuity, —  every  wealthy  society  for  itself  in  its  own 
way. 

Again,  the  likelihood  of  immorality  would  be  indirectly 
as  well  as  directly  diminished  by  the  absence  of  prosti- 
tutes as  a  class.  It  has  been  already  intimated  that 
prostitution  committed  injustice  to  hoth  sexes.  By  this 
it  was  intended  to  refer  to  the  injustice  of  exposing  our 
young  men  to  the  perpetual  temptation  furnished  by  the 
facilities  of  prostitution.  The  whole  question  of  sexual 
morality  is  mainly  one  of  suggestion.  Take  eight  men 
who  have  grown  accustomed  to  believe  that  they  cannot 
dispense  with  sexual  connection ;  put  them  in  a  crew  and 
remove  the  suggestion  that  they  can  obtain  relief  at  any 
time  by  substituting  therefor  the  notion  of  loyalty  to  the 
crew  or  a  desire  to  win  a  race,  and  the  sexual  desire 
which  before  seemed  uncontrollable  practically  disap- 
pears. The  moment  the  race  is  over,  the  old  suggestion 
returns,  and  the  night  of  a  boat  race  has  become  prover- 
bial in  consequence.  The  same  is  true  of  men  who  go 
on  hunting  expeditions,  yachting  cruises,  into  lumber 
camps,  etc.  Sexual  desire  becomes  dormant  or  con- 
trollable as  soon  as  facilities  for  gratifying  it  disappear; 
the  moment  the  facility  returns,  the  moment  they 
return  to  the  suggestion,  once  more  desire  becomes 
uncontrollable. 


346  COLLECTIVISM 

What,  then,  would  be  the  consequence  if  the  sugges- 
tion were  minimized  by  the  absence  of  prostitution 
altogether  ? 

But  this  is  not  all :  the  men  who  seduce  young  girls 
and  married  women  are  men  who  have  learned  to  gratify 
their  passions  through  the  facility  afforded  by  prostitu- 
tion. If  our  youths  were  never  afforded  the  chance 
of  taking  that  first  step  which  leads  to  the  facilis 
descensus^  they  would,  from  the  fact  of  never  having 
gratified  their  passions,  be  less  likely  to  undertake  to 
gratify  them  at  the  cost  of  seduction.  The  suggestion 
would  be  absent;  all  women  would  tend  to  be  as  sacred 
to  a  man  as  his  sister;  the  relation  of  the  brother  and 
sister  is  due  entirely  to  the  absence  of  suggestion ;  he 
has  learned  to  regard  her  with  an  unconscious  respect 
which  removes  the  possibility  of  erotic  suggestion. 
What  actually  happens  in  the  small  family  of  to-day 
could  also  happen  in  the  larger  family  of  to-morrow. 

This  must  not  be  understood  as  a  contention  that 
collectivism  would  destroy  immorality ;  far  from  it ;  the 
subject  is  a  difficult  one  and  uncomfortable  to  discuss. 
All  that  is  claimed  is  that  it  might  diminish  immorality 
and  that  it  would  put  an  end  to  prostitution.  This 
last  is  reason  enough  for  it. 

In  conclusion,  then,  an  intelligently  constituted  col- 
lectivism would  appreciate  the  importance  of  maintain- 
ing, above  all  things,  the  integrity  of  the  home;  the 
common  table  would  therefore  be  discouraged;  the 
separation  of  members  of  a  family  would  be  avoided; 
every  family  would  be  encouraged  to  live  permanently 
in  the  same  house,  to  adorn  the  house  and  make  it 
attractive;  and  the  right  of  inheritance,  limited  as 
described  already,  would  permit  of  the  handing  down 
of  all  those  things  which  tend  to  make  the  home  charac- 
teristic and  beautiful  from  generation  to  generation,  not 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     347 

only  for  a  few  rich,  but  for  every  member  of  the  com- 
munity alike. 

Few  attacks  upon  collectivism  are  more  insidious 
than  those  which  set  up  as  a  warning  the  failure  of  the 
numerous  attempts  at  socialism  which  were  made  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century  in  America.  All  these 
attempts  proceeded  upon  the  plan  that  men  and  women 
could  live  harmoniously  in  a  so-called  colony,  sharing  a 
common  table  and  daily  brought  into  dangerous  and 
unavoidable  propinquity.  The  hopelessness  of  such 
an  experiment  is  well  conveyed  in  "La  Clairiere,"  and 
ought  to  serve  as  an  explanation  why  our  American  at- 
tempts at  socialism  universally  failed.  Collectivism 
does  not  offer  a  solution  of  the  sexual  problem ;  it  only 
eliminates  the  economic  causes  of  prostitution,  and  the 
economic  reasons  which  induce  men  and  women  to 
many  for  money  instead  of  marrying  for  love  taken  in 
its  highest  sense.  The  sexual  problem  will  doubtless 
always  remain  a  source  of  ecstasy  and  rage;  it  will 
produce  discord  in  the  home  and  in  the  street;  it 
will  determine  political  as  well  as  social  conflicts;  it 
will  serve  not  only  as  a  scourge,  but  as  the  stimulant 
so  insisted  on  by  individualists.  It  will  promote  the 
variety  so  necessary  to  evolution,  —  human  as  well  as 
natural.  It  is  the  instrument  of  nature  for  torturing 
and  delighting  man  which  no  political  scheme  can  ever 
eliminate.  The  attempt  to  dispense  with  the  home  is 
an  attempt  to  disregard  a  natural  occasion  of  unhappi- 
ness  which  human  effort  may  diminish,  but  cannot  hope 
entirely  to  destroy;  for  the  home  is  the  human  device 
for  diminishing  the  effects  of  this  natural  occasion  of 
unhappiness  upon  the  happiness  and  advancement  of 
man.  The  mistake,  therefore,  of  eliminating  the  home 
from  the  ideal  collectivist  State  cannot  be  too  much 
insisted  upon.     For  the  home  is  the  school  and  shelter 


348  COLLECTIVISM 

of  family  afEection  and  family  sacrifice,  where  men  and 
women  learn  control  over  sexual  passion  and  the  beauty 
and  happiness  of  devotion  to  others. 


§  3.   That  Collectivism  Would  Be  Destructive 

OF  Liberty 

The  most  formidable  objection  to  collectivism  is  that 
it  will  interfere  with  liberty.  A  chapter  has  already 
been  devoted  to  studying  what  liberty  is,  and  the  con- 
clusion has  been  arrived  at  that  of  the  three  great  liber- 
ties, —  freedom  from  physical  restraint,  freedom  from 
political  oppression,  and  freedom  from  want,  —  the  first 
seems  to  have  been  practically  as  well  as  theoretically 
solved ;  the  second  has  been  theoretically  but  not  practi- 
cally solved ;  and  the  third  has  not  been  solved  at  all. 

The  question  presented  in  this  section  is  capable  of 
being  more  clearly  stated  now  that  the  economy  of  col- 
lectivism has  been  explained ;  it  divides  itself  into  two 
parts:  Does  collectivism  offer  a  practical  as  well  as  a 
theoretical  solution  of  the  problem  presented  by  the 
effort  to  attain  political  liberty;  and  Does  collectivism 
furnish  any  solution  at  all  of  the  problem  presented  by 
the  effort  to  attain  economic  liberty. 

Of  these  two,  let  us  consider  the  last  first. 


(a)  Economic  Liberty 

Mr.  Spencer  adopts  Sir  Henry  Maine's  theory  that 
social  life  must  be  carried  on  by  either  voluntary  co- 
operation or  compulsory  co-operation ;  "  the  system  must 
be  that  of  contract  or  that  of  status,  — •  that  in  which  the 
individual  is  left  to  do  the  best  he  can  by  his  sponta- 
neous efforts,  and  get  success  or  failure  according  to  his 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     349 

efficiency,  and  that  in  which  he  has  his  appointed  place, 
works  under  coercive  rule,  and  has  his  apportioned 
share  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter."^ 

This  theory  fails  to  recognise  that  the  system  of  con- 
tract under  the  competitive  system,  far  from  permitting 
a  large  element  of  liberty,  is  one  which,  on  the  contrary, 
submits  the  community  which  adopts  it  to  a  condition  of 
economic  despotism.  The  actual  experience  of  the  last 
century  in  its  effort  to  realise  so-called  liberty  of  con- 
tract has  demonstrated  that  under  competitive  conditions 
liberty  of  contract  is  impossible.  A  community  which 
adopts  or  consents  to  the  competitive  system  deliberately 
puts  into  power  a  despot  more  evil  than  Nature,  —  for 
the  Market  favours  a  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many 
without  securing  for  the  favoured  few  the  fertility 
essential  to  the  wholesome  perpetuation  of  the  race. 

Now  if  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  makes  liberty  of 
contract  impossible ;  if  in  addition,  by  favouring  an  un- 
fertile few  at  the  expense  of  the  fertile  many,  it  exercises 
a  debilitating  and  demoralising  effect  upon  the  race,  it 
fails  not  only  in  securing  the  liberty  which  Spencer 
claims  for  it,  but  also  in  realising  those  conditions 
which  have  been  laid  down  as  essential  to  the  attain- 
ment of  justice. 

So  much  depends  upon  this  part  of  the  argument  that 
no  excuse  ought  to  be  necessary  for  dwelling  a  moment 
upon  it. 

Until  the  revolutions  which  in  England  and  France 
substituted  constitutional  government  for  that  of  abso- 
lute monarchy,  the  mass  of  men  were  subject  to  indi- 
vidual lords ;  the  tyranny  exercised  over  them  was  an 
individual  tyranny,  —  that  of  one  man  over  another. 
The  forces  which  overthrew  the  individual  tyrant  were 
those  of  industry  and  commerce.  But  in  dethroning 
1  "A  Plea  for  Liberty."     Introduction,  p.  6. 


350  COLLECTIVISM 

the  king  the  merchant  did  not  secure  liberty;  he  only 
changed  tyrants.  The  new  tyranny  is  one  of  condi- 
tions or  institutions,  such  as  the  tyranny  of  the  Market, 
tlie  Trade  Union,  Employers'  Associations,  and  Trade 
Alliances. 

The  new  tyranny  is  in  one  sense  less  obvious  than 
the  old ;  it  is  perhaps  less  humiliating ;  but  it  is  none 
the  less  destructive  of  liberty.  Nothing  need  be  added 
to  the  chapter  on  Private  Property  in  order  to  demon- 
strate that  the  vast  majority  are  the  slaves  of  the  par- 
ticular occupation  through  which  they  earn  their  daily 
bread. 

If  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  secured  a  living  under 
reasonable  conditions  for  all,  it  might  still  be  endured ; 
but  in  this  it  fails  lamentably.  It  grinds  humanity  as 
in  a  mill,  and  its  results  sorted  out  are :  a  very  few  mil- 
lionaires; some  men  of  moderate  fortune;  a  mass  of 
workingmen  on  the  ragged  edge  of  want;  and  a  daily 
renewed  fifth  of  prostitutes,  criminals,  lunatics,  and 
paupers. 

Again,  if  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  wrought  out  of 
the  misery  it  occasions  some  lasting  moral  good  to  man- 
kind, then,  too,  it  might  be  endured.  But  except  that 
it  is  part  of  the  engine  of  tribulation  out  of  which  some 
sanctity  emerges,  but  much  more  despair,  the  direct 
tendency  of  the  Market  is  to  promote  selfishness  and 
deceit. 

The  substitution  of  the  tyranny  of  the  Market  for 
that  of  the  absolute  Monarch,  then,  is  not  only  degrad- 
ing to  the  morality  of  mankind,  but  fails  to  furnish 
security  from  want.     Does  it  secure  political  liberty  ? 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     351 


(b)  Political  Liberty 

Spencer  is  himself  a  witness  that  the  existence  of  this 
system,  even  under  popular  forms  of  government,  does 
not  secure  political  liberty;  he  says:  "How  little  the 
men  who  drew  up  the  American  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  framed  the  Republic  anticipated  that 
after  some  generations  the  Legislature  would  lapse  into 
the  hands  of  wire-pullers;  that  its  doings  would  turn 
upon  the  contests  of  office-seekers ;  that  political  action 
would  be  everywhere  vitiated  by  the  intrusion  of  a 
foreign  element  holding  the  balance  between  parties; 
that  electors,  instead  of  judging  for  themselves,  would 
habitually  be  led  to  the  poll  in  thousands  by  their 
'  bosses ; '  and  that  respectable  men  would  be  driven 
out  of  public  life  by  the  insults  and  slanders  of  profes- 
sional politicians."  1 

Under  no  competitive  scheme  of  government  that  has 
ever  been  suggested  has  political  liberty  been  in  fact 
attained,  and  neither  Herbert  Spencer  nor  any  individ- 
ualist has  ever  shown  us  how,  under  the  competitive 
system,  the  vicious  circle  through  which  political  revo- 
lutions have  despairingly  revolved  can  ever  be  broken. 
So  long  as  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  working  popu- 
lation are  engaged  all  day  in  the  labour  necessary  to 
earn  a  bare  living,  these  ninety-nine  hundredths  can 
neither  study  their  own  needs  nor  understand  their  own 
misfortunes,  nor  watch  the  government,  nor  effect  the 
necessary  combinations  to  secure  the  execution  of  their 
collective  will.  They  are  committed  by  economic  con- 
ditions to  ignorance,  and  delivered  by  both  to  the 
machine  and  to  the  boss. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  a  careful  analysis  of  our 

1  Introduction  to  "A  Plea  for  Liberty,"  p.  13. 


352  COLLECTIVISM 

existing  conditions  demonstrates  that  not  only  do  we 
fail  to  enjoy  liberty,  whether  political  or  economic,  but 
that  the  competitive  system  is  destructive  of  both.  Let 
us,  then,  begin  the  study  of  how  far  collectivism  affects 
liberty  by  ridding  our  minds  of  the  assumption  that 
individualism  favours  it. 

Most  students  are  inclined  to  accept  without  scrutiny 
the  assumption  that  individualism  means  liberty,  and 
collectivism  restraint.  This  is  the  assumption  implied 
by  the  title,  "A  Plea  for  Liberty,"  a  book  written  by  a 
group  of  individualists  already  quoted.  But  it  is 
demonstrable,  on  the  contrary,  that  individualism  is 
destructive  of  political  liberty ;  and  that  it  makes  eco- 
nomic liberty  impossible.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to 
push  the  analysis  of  liberty  a  step  farther,  and  inquire 
how  far  it  is  inaccurate  to  say  that  individualism  is 
consistent  with  personal  liberty  —  or  security  from  per- 
sonal restraint. 


(c)  Personal  Liberty 

The  question  of  liberty  is  to-day  fundamentally  a 
question  of  economics.  Before  the  merchant  turned 
the  soldier  out  of  the  political  arena,  the  minority  ruled 
the  majority  by  military  organisation.  The  condition 
of  inequality  produced  by  the  military  plan  is  perpetu- 
ated by  the  economic,  no  workingman  being  able  to 
lift  himself  out  of  his  condition  unless  possessed  of 
extraordinary  genius  or  favoured  by  such  conditions 
as  lately  presented  themselves  in  the  United  States. 
By  this,  however,  it  is  not  meant  to  imply  that  the 
revolution  which  put  the  merchant  in  power  instead 
of  the  feudal  lord  brought  no  improvement.  On  the 
contrary,  it  has  conferred  upon  the  workingman  a 
boon   of   priceless   value;    for   it    has   given   him   the 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     353 

political  franchise,  —  that  is  to  say,  it  has  put  into  his 
hands  a  weapon  by  the  use  of  which  he  can  secure  all 
the  liberties,  provided  economic  conditions  permit  of  its 
intelligent  employment.  Unfortunately,  economic  con- 
ditions are  such  that  the  workingman  is  as  yet  unable 
to  wield  the  weapon  which  political  revolutions  have  put 
into  his  hand.  He  is  learning  to  use  it;  the  informa- 
tion he  is  acquiring  in  his  trade  unions  is  teaching  him 
to  use  it;  but  they  may  not  be  teaching  him  to  use  it 
wisely,  and  there  is  probably  no  greater  danger  now 
menacing  civilisation  than  the  possible  misuse  of  this 
weapon  by  the  proletariat. 

The  enemy  of  liberty,  then,  to-day  is  economic  both 
in  the  sense  that  the  Market,  which  is  the  economic 
despot  of  us  all,  keeps  down  wages,  thereby  making 
four- fifths  of  our  population  slaves  to  their  employ- 
ment, and  in  the  sense  that,  so  long  as  wages  are  kept 
down,  the  entire  energy  of  this  four-fifths  of  the  popula- 
tion is  consumed  in  making  bread,  there  is  no  surplus 
energy  left  at  the  end  of  the  day  for  political  instruction, 
combination,  or  efficiency ;  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
correct  to  say  there  is  just  surplus  energy  left  for  polit- 
ical combination,  but  not  enough  for  political  and  eco- 
nomic instruction,  and  without  instruction  combination 
is  a  menace  to  the  State.  Keeping  the  economic  char- 
acter of  the  problem  clearly  in  our  minds,  let  us  now 
compare  the  degree  of  personal  liberty  attainable  under 
existing  conditions  with  the  degree  of  personal  liberty 
attainable  under  a  collectivist  State. 

Liberty  has  been  defined  to  be  the  freedom,  consistent 
with  security,  from  physical  restraint,  political  oppression, 
and  want,  and  with  a  high  degree  of  socialisation;  it  has 
been  roughly  stated  that,  as  regards  physical  restraint,  the 
problem  has  been  in  great  part  solved ;  but  by  physical 
restraint  has  been  meant  only  the  restraint  exercised  by 

23 


354  COLLECTIVISM 

imprisonment;  it  has  not  covered  the  physical  restraint 
to  which  every  workingman  is  put  by  his  employment. 
And  yet  this  is  no  small  part  of  liberty.  At  present  it 
is  fully  enjoyed  only  by  a  few  wealthy.  Under  the 
collectivist  State  it  would  be  enjoyed  in  a  great  measure 
by  all. 

The  economic  character  of  the  problem  of  liberty  has 
been  insisted  on  because  one  of  the  chief  claims  of 
collectivism  is  its  economy.  Collectivism  harnesses  all 
its  horses  to  the  same  end  of  the  cart.  Every  human 
being  capable  of  useful  production  is  encouraged  by  it 
to  co-operate  with  every  other  in  producing  for  the  com- 
mon benefit,  instead  of  being  encouraged  (as  he  is  in  the 
competitive  plan)  to  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  his  neigh- 
bour from  so  doing.  It  is  contended  for  this  system 
that,  taking  account  of  the  immense  number  of  men  and 
amount  of  time  now  dissipated  in  the  mere  work  and 
waste  of  competition,  the  diminution  of  pauperism 
and  crime,  and  the  general  enhancement  of  human  pro- 
ductiveness by  diminished  hours  of  toil,  the  same 
amount  of  comfort  as  is  now  enjoyed  by  the  middle  class 
could  in  a  collectivist  State  be  enjoyed  by  all  with  a 
daily  task  on  the  part  of  every  one  of  not  more  than 
three  to  six  hours,  —  the  shorter  period  being  allotted  to 
the  more  disagreeable  tasks,  the  longer  to  the  more 
agreeable. 

If  this  be  true,  then,  the  liberty  enjoyed  by  the  citi- 
zens of  a  collectivist  State  as  compared  with  that  enjoyed 
by  citizens  to-day  is  a  matter  of  arithmetic.  To-day  a 
workingman's  liberty  of  action  is  practically  confined 
to  one  day  in  seven;  for  the  hours  of  exhaustion  in 
which  he  is  neither  working,  eating,  nor  sleeping  during 
the  week  days  can  hardly  be  counted.  In  a  collectivist 
State  he  would  have,  in  addition  to  the  day  in  seven, 
one-half  of  every  day,  and  the  hours  of  exhaustion  would. 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     355 

owing  to  the  diminution  of  time  spent  in  toil,  cease  to 
be  hours  of  exhaustion  and  become  added  to  his  hours 
of  leisure. 

When,  therefore,  individualists,  in  declaiming  against 
collectivism,  hold  up  liberty  as  the  particular  appanage 
of  their  system,  they  are  confounding  the  shadow  of 
liberty  for  its  substance  under  conditions  which  furnish 
a  striking  example  of  credulity  on  the  one  hand,  and, 
on  the  other,  of  their  capacity  for  self-deception.  To  a 
nation  whose  chief  wealth  is  derived  from  factories 
where  workmen  rise  at  morn  to  the  sound  of  the  factory 
bell,  labour  by  time  according  to  a  factory  clock,  and 
are  regulated  as  to  rest  and  recreation  by  factory  hours, 
the  authors  of  "A  Plea  for  Liberty"  in  the  chapter 
entitled  "A  Plea  for  Liberty /or  Za&oitr,"  denounce 
collectivism  as  a  "conception  of  life  or  conduct"  which 
would  compel  men  "  to  rise  at  morn  to  the  sound  of  a 
State  gong,  breakfast  off  State  viands,  labour  by  time, 
according  to  a  State  clock,  dine  at  a  State  table  sup- 
plied at  the  State's  expense,  and  to  be  regulated  as  to 
rest  and  recreation." 

The  only  points  in  which  the  State  despotism  de- 
nounced in  this  paragraph  differs  from  the  factory  des- 
potism actually  in  force  are  points  as  to  which  the 
individualist  author  is  altogether  wrong.  Collectivism 
does  not  involve  "dining  at  a  State  table,"  and  the 
form  of  collectivism  under  discussion,  which  upholds 
the  family  as  the  most  precious  of  human  institutions, 
expressly  disclaims  it.  In  other  respects  the  two  des- 
potisms are  exactly  the  same,  save  that  individualism 
exercises  its  tyranny  upon  every  waking  hour  of  a  work- 
ingman's  life,  and  by  so  doing  deprives  him  not  only  of 
personal  liberty,  but  also  of  that  which  is  political  and 
economic;  whereas  the  so-called  collective  despotism 
would  exercise  its  so-called  tyranny  during   less  than 


356  COLLECTIVISM 

one-half  of  a  man's  waking  hours,  would  secure  him 
absolute  economic  liberty,  and  furnish  him  the  leisure 
for  securing  him  political  liberty  also. 

(d")  Summary  and  Conclusion 

In  our  first  inquiry  into  the  meaning  of  the  word 
*'  liberty  "  we  had  to  content  ourselves  with  an  incom- 
plete analysis,  because  the  ideas  of  it  entertained  under 
our  existing  competitive  system  are  so  distorted  by  the 
system,  and  our  language  contains  so  many  of  the 
errors  regarding  liberty  incorporated  within  the  terms 
which  we  have  to  use  in  describing  it,  that,  so  long  as 
no  other  than  the  competitive  system  was  before  our 
minds,  it  was  impossible  to  reach  a  final  conclusion 
regarding  liberty. 

For  the  purposes  of  analysis,  therefore,  we  began  by 
dividing  liberty  into  three  kinds  : 

First,  jDcrsonal  liberty,  or  freedom  from  restraint. 

Second,  political  liberty,  or  freedom  from  despotic 
government. 

Third,  economic  liberty,  or  freedom  from  want. 

Of  these,  the  first  was  described  as  freedom  or  secu- 
rity from  such  personal  restraint  as  imprisonment,  and 
we  had  to  content  ourselves  with  this  superficial  notion 
of  personal  liberty.  The  second,  or  political  liberty, 
was  described  as  freedom  or  security  from  despotic 
government,  security  consisting  mainly  in  the  faculty 
afforded  by  the  electoral  franchise  for  turning  out  a 
government  if  it  became  despotic  or  obnoxious.  This, 
again,  was  a  superficial  interpretation  of  the  phrase 
"  political  liberty,"  because  it  failed  to  take  account  of 
the  fact  that  a  nation  might  be  in  the  nominal  possess- 
ion of  the  electoral  franchise  and  yet  the  vast  majority 
be  disfranchised  by  economic  conditions. 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     357 

Adopting  these  provisional  and  superficial  accounts 
of  personal  and  political  liberty,  we  concluded  that  in 
the  most  civilised  countries  to-day  we  had  secured  per- 
sonal liberty,  had  theoretically,  but  not  practically, 
secured  political  liberty,  and  had  failed  to  secure  econo- 
mic liberty  altogether.  The  further  conclusion  was 
reached  that,  under  the  competitive  system,  economic 
liberty,  or  security  from  want,  was  impossible  except 
for  a  very  small  minority. 

A  study  of  collectivism  presenting  an  economic  con- 
dition which  ought  to  diminish  by  one-half  the  labour 
of  every  individual  in  a  community,  and  thus  create  a 
leisure  during  one-half  of  every  day  for  every  individual 
therein,  and  a  very  brief  examination  of  the  conditions 
created  by  such  a  system,  serve  to  show  that  the  leisure 
so  created  is  the  real  equivalent  for  liberty,  — that  we 
have  heretofore  contented  ourselves  with  the  shadow 
instead  of  the  substance,  —  with  appearing  to  enjoy 
liberty  when  in  fact  we  were  not  enjoying  it.  The 
reason  of  this  will  best  be  understood  by  considering 
for  a  moment  what  are  the  fundamental  problems  which 
the  political  student  is  called  upon  to  solve. 

In  a  previous  volume  ^  it  was  pointed  out  that  there 
were  certain  conditions  imposed  upon  us  by  nature 
which  man  can  never  eliminate  by  art.  In  so  far  as 
these  conditions  are  hostile  to  happiness,  the  best  he 
can  do  is  by  art  to  diminish  the  extent  of  this  hostility. 
The  task  of  the  sociologist  and  political  student  is  to 
examine  the  systems  adopted  by  man  to  diminish  this 
hostility,  with  a  view  to  determining  whether  they  are 
the  best  systems  possible. 

Among  the  conditions  imposed  by  nature  which 
contribute  both  to  his  happiness  and  unhappiness  are 
two  instincts  which  are  necessary  to  his  existence. 
1  Government,  or  Human  Evolution,  pp.  307-316,  338-342. 


358  COLLECTIVISM 

One  is  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  sets 
man  upon  furnishing  himself  with  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  and  physical  comforts,  and  gives  rise  to  what 
may  be  called  the  economic  problem  of  society.  The 
other  is  the  instinct  of  self-perpetuation,  which  gives 
rise  to  the  sexual  problem.  The  two  instincts  which 
set  man  upon  the  solution  of  these  two  problems  are 
overmastering.  If,  in  a  given  community  they  ceased 
to  be  overmastering,  the  community  would  disappear. 
Of  the  two,  perhaps  the  economic  comes  first,  because 
in  the  life  of  man  it  precedes  the  other  and  acts  upon 
him  every  hour  of  every  day,  whereas  in  the  life  of  man 
the  latter  comes  subsequently  to  the  former  and  acts 
upon  him  fitfully  rather  than  all  the  time.  Theoreti- 
cally, therefore,  the  economic  problem  comes  before  the 
sexual  problem.  In  fact,  however,  under  the  competi- 
tive system,  the  sexual  problem  becomes  also  an  econo- 
mic problem  ;  so  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  economic 
problem  is  immeasurably  the  more  important  of  the 
two.  Moreover,  the  extent  to  which  economics  are 
the  basis  of  all  our  problems  —  political,  social,  and 
religious  —  becomes  clear  when  we  remember  that  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter  a  man  must  have.  It  is  only  after 
these  are  provided  that  he  can  satisfy,  or  even  entertain, 
his  spiritual,  intellectual,  and  moral  aspirations. 

The  first,  fundamental  —  the  essential  —  problem, 
therefore,  for  every  community,  is  how  to  obtain  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter  for  all.  The  slavery  imposed  by 
it  is  a  natural  slavery,  shared  by  the  savage  and  the 
lower  animal.  It  is  one  at  which,  in  this  world,  it  is 
useless  to  complain.  These  three  things,  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter,  must  somehow  be  secured.  The  question 
humanity  has  to  solve  is  how  these  things  can  be 
secured  with  the  greatest  safety  and  with  the  least 
effort.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  history  of  civilisation 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     359 

is  the  history  of  a  long  attempt  to  solve  this  problem ; 
and  because  it  is  complicated  with  another  natural  law 
known  as  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest,"  it  has  given 
rise  to  the  competitive  system  under  which  we  now 
live,  and  which  individualists  defend  as  the  best  of 
which  man  is  to-day  capable. 

The  coUectivist  answers  by  pointing  out  that  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  is  a  natural  law  which,  ever  since 
the  dawn  of  civilisation,  man  has  been  more  or  less 
unconsciously  engaged  in  combating,  and  one  which 
he  has  succeeded  already,  to  a  large  degree,  in  eliminat- 
ing from  social  conditions ;  that  his  efforts,  however,  in 
eliminating  the  application  of  this  cruel  and  unjust  law 
to  social  conditions,  have  had  for  effect  to  prevent  the 
extermination  of  the  weak  only  on  the  condition  of 
maintaining  them  in  the  miserable  existence  endured 
by  the  pauper,  the  criminal,  and  the  insane  ;  that,  in  so 
far  as  the  competitive  system  still  prevails  among  us, 
it  constitutes  a  mill  the  unlovely  product  of  which 
mercy  compels  us  to  support  in  lunatic  asylums,  peni- 
tentiaries, and  almshouses ;  that  the  system  is  attended 
by  gross  and  unnecessary  economic  waste ;  and  that  it 
is  so  exacting  upon  the  time  and  energy  of  the  race 
that,  except  for  a  small  and  favoured  few,  it  practically 
deprives  them  of  liberty  altogether;  that,  in  a  word, 
given  the  simple  problem  of  how  a  given  community 
should  procure  for  itself  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  for 
every  individual  in  it,  the  plan  adopted  by  the  com- 
munity for  solving  it  under  the  competitive  system  is 
one  which  if,  as  illustrated  at  the  opening  of  the 
chapter,  a  drayman  were  to  apply  to  the  harnessing 
of  his  team,  we  should  regard  the  drayman  as  insane  ; 
that  the  problem  has  been  complicated  by  the  applica- 
tion thereto  of  the  competitive  system,  whereas,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  a  comparatively  simple  one.     Re- 


360  COLLECTIVISM 

turning  to  the  illustration  with  which  this  chapter 
opened,  if  a  drayman  were  to  hitch  his  three  horses  to 
different  parts  of  liis  cart,  so  that  they  work  against 
one  another  in  different  directions  instead  of  working 
with  another  in  the  same  direction,  the  problem  of  get- 
ting his  cart  to  market  would  be  not  only  complicated 
but  practically  hopeless,  whereas,  if  he  were  to  adopt 
the  more  rational  method  in  common  use  among  us, 
the  problem  of  getting  the  cart  to  market  becomes  one 
which  is  solved  every  hour  of  the  day.  Collectivism, 
then,  does  no  more  than  propose  a  sane  in  lieu  of  an 
insane  method  of  national  production  and  one  which, 
if  substituted,  solves  the  problem  of  liberty. 

The  natural  slavery  to  which  the  necessity  for  food 
and  clothing  sets  the  savage  is  measured  by  the  number 
of  hours  which  he  has  daily  to  devote  to  the  task  of 
securing  them.  Men  have  been  engaged,  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  world,  in  performing  only  that  part  of 
the  task  which  is  agreeable,  and  putting  that  part  of  the 
task  which  is  disagreeable  upon  others.  Thus,  in  the 
savage  state,  the  men  do  the  hunting  and  the  women 
do  the  rest.  In  the  more  advanced  stage  of  civilisation 
a  few  men  appropriate  to  themselves  the  easy  and  pleas- 
ant tasks  and  put  the  difficult  and  unpleasant  tasks  upon 
the  majority;  and  this  exploitation  of  the  majority  by 
the  minority  has  been  going  on  under  different  forms  of 
government  ever  since  the  world  began,  so  that  to-day, 
under  forms  of  government  which  we  call  "poj)ular," 
thanks  to  the  competitive  system,  the  workman  is  more 
of  a  slave,  so  far  as  the  enjoyment  of  real  liberty  is  con- 
cerned, than  he  was  under  the  despotism  of  a  Genghis 
Khan.  The  economic  problem  presented  to  humanity 
is  how  to  secure  the  necessities  and  comforts  of  life  with 
the  greatest  security  and  the  least  effort.  It  has  already 
been   shown   that   the   greatest    security   can   only   be 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     361 

obtained  by  collective  effort,  — that  is  to  say,  by  associ- 
ation. The  question  presented  by  the  collectivist  and 
individualist  respectively  is:  whether  in  this  association 
individuals  are  to  work  against  one  another,  or  whether 
they  are  all  to  work  together.  Now,  the  claim  of  the 
collectivist  is  that,  by  constituting  the  society  in  such  a 
manner  that  every  individual  in  it  is  co-operating  with 
every  other  individual  in  it,  the  problem  presented  by 
nature  —  how  to  secure  food,  clothing,  shelter,  and  the 
comforts  of  life  —  will  be  solved  with  the  greatest  security 
and  the  least  effort;  and,  as  a  necessary  corollary,  the 
time  which  every  man  is  obliged  to  devote  to  this  work 
by  a  law  of  nature,  the  effect  of  which  we  can  diminish 
but  never  eliminate,  will  be  reduced  to  the  least  possi- 
ble, and  the  leisure  which  every  individual  in  the  com- 
munity will  enjoy  will  be  increased  to  the  utmost 
possible.  Now,  this  leisure,  as  has  been  stated,  is  the 
real  equivalent  of  liberty;  for  liberty  has  been  defined 
subjectively  as  being  the  faculty  to  do  what  one  wants, 
and  has  been  defined  objectively  to  be  freedom  consistent 
with  the  greatest  security.  Now,  in  so  far  as  the  secur- 
ing of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  involves  irksome 
duties,  it  is  a  nahiral  and  necessary  limitation  to  man's 
freedom ;  and  the  community  which  solves  the  problem 
how  to  reduce  the  hours  devoted  to  irksome  duties  to 
the  utmost  is  the  community  which  will  best  have  solved 
the  problem  of  liberty,  for  it  will  have  extended  to  the 
utmost  the  hours  in  which  every  man  will  be  free  to  do 
what  he  wants.  If,  therefore,  the  collectivist  is  right  in 
claiming  that  the  substitution  of  collective  action  for  com- 
petitive action  would  have  for  effect  to  reduce  the  hours 
of  labour  of  every  man  in  the  community,  collectivism 
is  the  social  scheme  which  best  solves  the  problem  of 
liberty,  for  it  is  only  during  hours  of  leisure  that  a  man 
is  really  free. 


362  COLLECTIVISM 

And  leisure  not  only  gives  a  man  a  right  to  satisfy  his 
subjective  notion  of  liberty,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  right  to 
do  what  he  wants,  —  but  it  also  solves  the  problem  of 
political  liberty ;  for  it  gives  him  the  time  indispensable 
to  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  needs  of  the  community, 
for  determining  the  political  action  necessary  to  satisfy 
these  needs,  and  for  combining  to  make  that  political 
action  effectual. 

Revising,  then,  the  rough,  incomplete,  and  superficial 
classification  of  liberty  with  which  we  had  to  content 
ourselves  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  this  subject,  and 
viewing  liberty  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  collectivist 
State,  the  following  conclusions  seem  to  result  from  it. 

First,  as  regards  personal  liberty :  in  so  far  as  by  per- 
sonal liberty  is  meant  freedom  from  false  imprisonment, 
our  present  State  practically  has  secured  it;  but  in  so 
far  as  it  means  freedom  to  do  what  a  man  wants  to  do, 
as  opposed  to  doing  that  which  the  necessities  of  life 
oblige  him  to  do,  personal  liberty  is  a  part  of  the 
economic  problem,  and,  as  such,  has  not  been  solved 
under  the  competitive  system  at  all.  The  problem  of 
personal  liberty  is  best  solved  under  the  social  scheme, 
which  would  enable  every  individual  to  perform  that 
part  of  the  task  of  securing  food,  clothing,  and  shelter 
that  is  irksome  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  thus  leaving 
him  free  to  do  what  he  wants  during  as  large  a  number 
of  waking  hours  as  possible.  This  is  the  result  claimed 
for  collectivism. 

Second,  as  regards  political  liberty:  it  will  be  seen 
that  whereas  we  at  present  have  in  our  hands  the 
electoral  franchise,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  machinery 
through  which  we  can,  theoretically,  turn  out  a  bad 
government  and  put  in  a  good,  —  the  vast  majority  is, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  overworked  that  it  has  no  leisure 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM   DISCUSSED     363 

either  intelligently  to  frame  a  political  programme  or, 
when  framed,  to  enforce  it;  so  that  our  political  ma- 
chinery rusts  from  disuse,  and  we  remain  subject,  as 
before,  to  the  despotism  of  the  minority.  Collectivism 
solves  this  problem,  in  the  first  place,  by  simplifying  the 
problem  of  government,  through  the  elimination  of  the 
economic  complications  that  result  from  the  competitive 
system ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  by  giving  every  indi- 
vidual leisure  in  which  to  follow  day  by  day  the  action 
of  the  government,  and  to  combine,  whenever  neces- 
sary, to  secure  the  execution  of  the  collective  will.  It 
is  only,  therefore,  through  collectivism  that  political 
liberty  can  be  really  attained. 

In  the  third  place,  collectivism  solves  the  economic 
problem  or  furnishes  to  all  equally  security  from  want. 

It  seems,  then,  that  it  is  only  by  a  collective  form  of 
government  that  the  three  great  liberties  can  be  enjoyed, 
not  only  in  semblance,  but  in  fact. 

And  with  the  enjoyment  of  real  liberty  comes  eman- 
cipation from  different  forms  of  subjection  to  which  men 
and  women  are  to-day  exposed.  The  tyranny  of  the 
Market,  which  is  the  necessary  product  of  the  competi- 
tive system,  and  is  bearing  mercilessly  upon  us  all,  for- 
bidding the  few  who  have  wealth  and  are  willing  to  be 
generous  from  being  generous,  and  committing  the  rest, 
who  have  no  wealth,  to  a  life  of  hopeless  toil  and  daily 
anxiety,  —  this  tyranny  disappears,  and  with  the  disap- 
pearance of  it  disappears  also  the  problem  of  the  unem- 
ployed and  the  slavery  of  prostitution,  of  pauperism,  and 
in  great  part  of  crime. 

And  of  all  the  contentions  made  by  the  individualist 
in  favour  of  the  competitive  system,  none,  perhaps,  now 
seems  more  ironical  than  the  contention  that  the  com- 
petitive system  develops  character.  It  has  already 
been  pointed  out  that,  if  by  character  is  meant  selfish- 


364  COLLECTIVISM 

ness,  ferocity,  and  lust,  then  the  competitive  system 
does  favour  this  development;  but  if  by  character,  on 
the  contrary,  is  meant  the  faculty  of  self-control,  of  self- 
sacrifice,  and  the  attending  virtues  which  arise  out  of 
the  social  state  because  they  are  indispensable  to  it, 
then  it  will  be  seen  that  the  competitive  system  tends 
to  render  this  character  impossible,  whereas  collectiv- 
ism promotes  these  qualities  all  the  time. 

Last,  but  not  least,  the  competitive  system  creates  an 
environment  to  which  the  vast  majority  of  the  individ- 
uals of  a  community  are  unconscious  slaves.  The  work- 
ingman  does  not  know  the  extent  of  his  slavery,  —  the 
deo"ree  to  which  he  becomes  a  mere  part  of  the  machinery 
which  he  keeps  in  motion.  The  business  man,  the  bank 
president,  whose  daily  life  in  another  place  has  been 
described,  —  nay,  the  members  of  our  government,  who 
appear  to  enjoy  positions  of  authority,  —  are  themselves 
unconscious  of  the  daily  habits  to  which  they  are  not- 
knowing  slaves.  The  compulsion  which  the  competitive 
system  puts  upon  every  workingman,  whether  he  works 
with  his  brains  or  with  his  hands,  moulds  him  contrary 
to  his  conscience  and  contrary  to  his  will.  The  more 
compelling  the  environment,  the  more  hopeless  it  is  for 
the  individual  to  criticise  or  resist  its  action  upon  him. 
It  is  in  hours  of  leisure  only  that  a  man  is  released 
from  the  subjection  of  the  environment,  and  it  is 
during  the  hours  of  leisure  that  he  can  learn  to  emanci- 
pate himself  from  the  slavery  of  the  environment  and 
develop  whatever  there  is  in  him  of  individual  good. 
That  the  leisure  afforded  by  collectivism  will  be  applied 
by  many  to  mere  relaxation  and  idleness  is  undoubtedly 
true,  but  that  every  man  wlio  has  in  him  the  rendering 
of  some  social  service  will  have  leisure  for  that  service 
is  equally  true;  so  that  the  faculty  of  social  service 
which  we  see  now  daily  crushed  out  of  men  by  the  neces- 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     365 

sities  of  competitive  life  will  in  all  of  them  have  in  the 
collective  State  the  fullest  opportunity  for  the  freest 
exercise.  The  artist  will  no  longer  be  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  wealthy  patron,  the  writer  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  paying  public,  or  the  preacher  to  the  regu- 
lations of  an  established  church  or  the  caprices  of  a 
fashionable  congregation.  During  the  hours  of  leisure 
secured  by  collectivist  economy  a  man,  having  his  phy- 
sical needs  satisfied,  will  for  the  first  time  be  indeed 
free,  and  have  his  time  and  energy  emancipated  for 
the  untrammelled  satisfaction  of  spiritual  and  mental 
aspirations. 

§  4.   That  Collectivism  Would  Fuknish 
Insufficient  Stimulation 

It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  those  who  object  to  col- 
lectivism on  the  ground  that  it  would  not  furnish  suffi- 
cient stimulation  for  individual  activity,  that  the  curse 
of  our  present  system  is  that  it  so  over-stimulates  indi- 
vidual activity  as  to  lead  not  only  to  individual  but  to 
racial  degeneration.  This  matter  has  been  sufficiently 
discussed  to  make  it  unnecessary  to  enlarge  upon  it 
again ;  suffice  it  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  true  art 
of  government  would  seek  to  get  out  of  every  human 
being  the  maximum  amount  of  work  of  which  he  is  ca- 
pable, not  during  the  first  few  years  of  his  life  only,  but 
through  the  whole  productive  period  thereof.  Under 
the  present  competitive  system  undue  pressure  is  brought 
to  bear  upon  us  from  our  infancy :  the  number  of  hours 
which  a  French  child  is  obliged  to  spend  over  his  books 
is  recognised  now  by  the  highest  medical  authorities  in 
France  as  destructive  rather  than  constructive  of  brain 
tissue;  experiments  made  upon  the  attention  of  men, 
women,    and   children    have    demonstrated    that  such 


366  COLLECTIVISM 

attention  as  a  child  gives  to  the  learning  of  a  lesson  can 
only  be  maintained  without  exhaustion  for  about  twenty 
minutes  at  a  time ;  and  yet  children  are  called  upon  in 
France  to  spend  as  much  as  twelve  hours  in  the  day 
with  a  book  before  their  eyes.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  children  are  saved  from  insanity  by  the  very  inat- 
tention which  teachers  are  expected  to  punish  and  pre- 
vent. It  is  probable  that  one  of  the  principal  causes  of 
the  superiority  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  over  the  Latin  race 
generally  is  due  to  the  fact  that  our  children  are  not  so 
much  exhausted  by  early  education  as  theirs ;  but  it  is 
also  probable  that  over-education  is  still  an  injury  to 
our  race,  and  the  increased  prevalence  of  examinations 
as  a  condition  of  preferment  is  likely,  if  continued  under 
our  present  institutions,  to  increase  the  temptation  to 
begin  the  process  of  cramming  at  an  early  age,  and  to 
keep  it  up  as  long  as  is  necessary  for  passing  exami- 
nations. 

And  the  pressure  under  which  children  suffer,  owing 
to  the  necessity  of  passing  examinations  in  some  cases 
and  the  ambition  of  parents  in  others,  is  continued 
throughout  the  mature  years  of  life  and  generally  to  the 
grave.  Indeed,  those  men  are  often  the  least  unhappy 
who  are  driven  by  this  pressure  to  an  early  death;  for 
they  are  saved  the  dreary  torments  of  a  long  struggle 
with  ill  health.  The  competitive  system  presents 
throughout  a  wasteful,  unjust,  and  merciless  plan; 
every  man  and  woman  engaged  in  the  competitive  mill, 
instead  of  receiving  the  interested  care  for  the  future 
which  characterised  the  slave-owner  of  old  and  char- 
acterises the  cab-driver  of  to-day,  are  pitilessly  driven 
by  the  lash  of  competition,  so  as  to  expend  in  a  few 
years  the  energy  of  an  entire  lifetime,  at  the  cost  of 
misery  to  themselves  and  degeneration  to  their  offsj^ring. 
As  a  deliberate  plan  of  government,  such  a  system  as 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM   DISCUSSED     367 

this  is  not  only  immoral  but  imbecile ;  it  submits  us  to 
a  less  intelligent  regime  than  that  of  the  slave  and  of 
the  cab-horse. 

In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  unwise  to  ask  our- 
selves whether  the  necessity  for  stimulation  has  not 
been  much  exaggerated.  Those  who  admire  fine  phrases 
more  than  precise  thought  will  quote  in  this  connection 
Emerson,  who  says  that  "  Mankind  is  as  lazy  as  it  dares 
to  be."  Nothing  can  be  more  untrue.  If  we  judge 
mankind  from  the  degenerate  types  produced  by  the 
over-stimulation  of  the  competitive  system,  Emerson 
may  be  right.  Tramps  are  lazy ;  so  also  are  paupers ; 
so  also  are  those  who  have  been  degenerated  by  wealth 
and  those  who  have  been  degenerated  by  a  tropical 
climate.  But  wherever  we  find  man  undegenerated,  he 
is  characterised  by  a  prodigious  activity.  We  shall  be 
told  that  this  activity  is  due  to  the  competitive  system; 
what  shall  we  say,  then,  of  children?  Who  can  have 
failed  to  notice  the  perpetual  movement  in  which  they 
delight;  the  busy  toil  with  which  they  construct  toy 
castles  and  ineffectual  encampments  in  the  sand;  with 
which  they  imitate  the  industry  of  their  parents ;  boys 
playing  horses ;  girls  playing  at  cookery,  and  the  dress- 
ing and  undressing  of  dolls ;  artificial  shops,  mechanical 
toys ;  everything,  in  fact,  which  permits  of  their  giving 
activity  to  the  principle  of  imitation,  which  is  the  first 
expression  of  their  intelligence  ?  , 

But  those  who  oppose  collectivism  when  unbiassed  by 
personal  interest  do  so  for  the  most  part  through  defect 
of  imagination ;  they  insist  upon  trying  to  impose  col- 
lectivism upon  our  own  generation,  whereas  this  has 
over  and  over  again  been  pointed  out  to  be  a  mistake. 
The  children  of  this  generation  learn  to  adopt  the  view 
of  life  which  they  find  in  their  environment.  If  they 
be  children  of  healthy  and  industrious  parents,  they  will 


368  COLLECTIVISM 

be  naturally  as  industrious  as  is  the  ant.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  are  children  of  parents  who  have  been 
worn  out  by  the  competitive  system,  or  of  those  who 
have  been  long  affected  by  wealth,  they  will  either  be 
brought  up  to  try  and  shirk  work,  or  to  believe  that 
they  are  dispensed  from  it.  This  will  create  two  cur- 
rents of  thought,  very  different  in  kind  but  identical 
in  result;  for  the  result  of  both  is  the  laziness  which 
Emerson  so  improperly  applies  to  the  whole  race. 

In  a  collectivist  State  the  idea  of  not  working  would 
not  occur  to  a  human  being  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave.  On  the  contrary,  the  necessity  of  working 
would  be  as  perpetually  present  to  his  mind  as  that  of 
food  and  drink;  none  in  the  community  would  during 
the  years  of  production  be  dispensed  from  work;  and 
therefore  the  example  of  laziness  would  nowhere  be 
seen.  Under  these  conditions  the  suggestion  of  lazi- 
ness, to  which  most  of  the  laziness  that  exists  in  the 
world  is  due,  would  be  entirely  absent.  Tramps  and 
paupers  for  the  most  part  are  slaves  to  the  suggestion 
that  they  can  get  on  without  work :  this  paralyses  their 
nervous  centres  and  makes  them  unfit  for  work;  and 
just  as  persons  believing  themselves  paralysed  and  bed- 
ridden for  years  have  been  known  to  jump  out  of  bed 
on  the  cry  of  "fire,"  so  the  pauper  and  the  tramp,  when 
the  suggestion  under  which  they  labour  is  removed  and 
another  will  substituted  for  their  own,  are  found  j)retty 
nearly  as  able  and  willing  to  work  as  others.  This  has 
been  amply  demonstrated  in  the  labour  colonies  of  Bel- 
gium and  Holland.  The  power  of  suggestion  involves 
two  elements:  first,  an  enfeebled  bodily  condition 
which  renders  an  individual  subject  to  suggestion; 
secondly,  the  example  of  laziness  which  makes  the  sug- 
gestion possible.  Now  a  collectivist  State  would  rid 
the  race  of  both  of  these  elements;  for  there  need  be 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     369 

neither  the  over-exhaustion  which  tends  to  subject  men 
to  the  force  of  suggestion,  nor  the  example  of  laziness 
which  tends  to  create  the  suggestion  itself. 

Under  these  conditions,  habits  of  industry  are  likely, 
under  a  collectivist  State,  to  be  not  only  more  contin- 
uous but  more  universal  than  under  our  own.  It  may 
be  objected,  however,  that  although  habits  of  industry 
will  suffice  to  keep  a  people  alive,  they  will  not  suffice 
to  advance  a  people  along  the  line  of  progress.  For 
this  purpose  it  would  seem  that  something  more  than 
habit  is  necessary,  and  that  the  competitive  system 
alone  can  furnish  this  kind  of  stimulus.  In  order  to 
test  this  objection  it  may  be  well  to  consider  for  a 
moment  of  what  elements  stimulus  to  exertion,  outside 
of  habits  of  industry,  is  made  up. 

Obviously  men  will  not  do  more  work  than  their 
habits  direct  unless  such  work  is  either  aimed  at  the 
avoidance  of  pain  or  done  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 
The  aim  of  the  collectivist  system  is  to  reduce  pain; 
it  need  not,  however,  for  that  reason  diminish  the 
element  of  stimulus  which  consists  in  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure. 

If  we  analyse  the  motives  which  induce  men  to  engage 
in  scientific  research,  they  will  be  found  to  consist  mainly 
of  three  distinguishable  motives :  curiosity,  the  pleasure 
which  accompanies  doing  anything  that  we  are  fitted  to 
do,  and  a  desire  for  consideration  or  fame. 

Now,  curiosity  will  be  enhanced  rather  than  dimin- 
ished in  the  collectivist  State,  because  it  is  killed  in 
most  of  us  by  the  overwork  involved  in  earning  our 
daily  bread.  Curiosity  is  consistent  only  with  a  certain 
freshness  of  the  mind  and  body:  a  horse,  when  first 
taken  out  of  the  stable,  will  observe  and  shy  at  every 
object  in  his  path ;  but  as  soon  as  he  becomes  fatigued 
he  will  cease  to  take  notice  of  these  things  altogether. 

24 


370  COLLECTIVISM 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  ourselves  in  a  long  day's 
walk.  We  are  all  of  us  familiar  with  the  eager  interest 
we  take  in  a  new  book  during  the  first  hours  of  reading, 
and  how  the  interest  flags  as  the  brain  grows  weary; 
and  we  are  all  familiar  with  the  fact  that  young  men 
who  are  keenly  interested  in  scientific  subjects  at  the 
University  lose  all  interest  in  them  when  their  minds 
are  worn  out  by  professional  labour.  Obviously,  then, 
if  collectivism  prevents  both  mental  and  physical  ex- 
haustion, curiosity  will  be  enhanced  by  it  rather  than 
diminished. 

Moreover  the  pleasure  which  accompanies  the  doing 
of  anything  that  we  can  do  well  is  like  curiosity  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  consistent  only  with  the  absence  of 
fatigue,  and  that  when  fatigue  is  absent  the  pleasure  of 
work  is  in  itself  stimulus  enough. 

But  of  the  three  elements  which  go  to  make  up  the 
stimulus  for  human  action,  none  is  as  powerful  as  the 
desire  for  human  consideration.  As  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  once  we  are  beyond  the  reach  of  hunger, 
the  race  for  wealth  becomes,  in  fact,  a  race  for  human 
consideration;  but  the  race  is  distorted  in  its  purpose 
and  disgraced  in  its  methods  by  the  substitution  of  the 
means  for  the  end,  —  of  wealth  for  affection.  So  long 
as  men  desire  the  affection  of  one  another,  —  and  we 
cannot  conceive  of  men  ceasing  to  desire  this,  —  so 
long  they  will  have  always  the  stimulus  necessary 
for  the  fullest  development  and  use  of  all  their  mental 
capacities. 

The  conclusion,  then,  to  which  we  seem  to  be  led, 
is  that  the  effect  of  collectivism  would  be  to  diminish 
the  stimulus  that  results  from  pain  and  enhance  that 
which  results  from  pleasure.  All  trainers  of  animals 
will  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that,  of  these  two  stimuli, 
pleasure  is  the  more  potent.     Nor  is  it  otherwise  with 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM   DISCUSSED     371 

the  human  race.  Every  individual,  too,  in  a  collectivist 
State,  would  have  a  stimulus  for  the  rapid  performance 
of  his  work,  in  the  fact  that,  through  the  adoption  of  the 
piece-work  plan,  the  sooner  the  daily  task  was  accom- 
plished, the  more  time  he  would  have  for  himself.  This 
time  he  could  devote  to  securing  means  of  enjoyment 
and  all  such  specific  advantages  as  a  man  can  furnish  his 
family  and  himself  without  making  these  means  of  enjoy- 
ment an  opportunity  for  oppressing  his  fellow  man.  And 
if  to  these  direct  sources  of  pleasure  to  himself  there 
be  added  all  those  pleasures  connected  with  efforts  to 
advance  the  general  good,  the  dignity  of  such  efforts, 
and  the  social  position  which  success  in  these  efforts 
commands,  clearly  there  is  in  the  collectivist  State  no 
lack  of  stimulus.  All  that  collectivism  does,  then,  is 
to  diminish  the  stimulus  of  pain;  it  enhances  that  of 
pleasure. 

§  5.  That  Collectivism  Would  Be  Aktificial  or 
Contrary  to  Nature 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary,  after  all  that  has  been 
already  written  about  nature,  to  deal  at  any  length  with 
this  objection.  It  has  been  pointed  out  before  that  all 
civilisation  is  contrary  to  nature.  In  the  natural  state 
men  hunt  and  devour  one  another;  every  device  which 
man  has  invented  to  diminish  the  rigour  of  climate,  his 
method  of  preparing  food,  —  in  a  word,  everything 
which  distinguishes  man  from  beast,  —  is  artificial  or 
contrary  to  nature. 

There  is  nevertheless  a  principle  underlying  this 
objection  which  is  sound ;  for  there  are  friendly  forces 
in  nature  as  well  as  hostile,  and  it  is  when  we  violate 
or  ignore  these  friendly  forces  that  we  are  guilty  of 
error   or  even   crime.       The  objection,  therefore,   that 


372  COLLECTIVISM 

collectivism  is  contrary  to  nature  must  be  examined  in 
order  to  test  whether  there  is  in  it  anything  which  vio- 
lates a  friendly  law  of  nature,  or  one  which,  even 
though  not  friendly,  is  imperative.  In  other  words,  is 
there  anything  in  collectivism  which  is  unwholesome, 
immoral,  or  unwise? 

A  full  answer  to  this  question  involves  an  answer  to 
every  objection  that  can  be  raised  to  collectivism,  one 
after  the  other.  This  has  been  already  in  great  part 
attempted.  All,  therefore,  that  will  be  added  here  is 
to  point  out  that  in  its  essential  characteristics  collec- 
tivism is  less  artificial,  less  contrary  to  nature,  than 
our  present  system.  For  the  two  systems  differ  mainly 
in  the  fact  that  whereas  our  present  system  admits  pri- 
vate property,  collectivism  admits  it  only  to  a  very  small 
degree;  and  it  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  the 
recognition  of  private  property  by  a  community  is  a 
device  peculiar  to  man. 

In  nature  we  find  two  main  theories  of  property: 
First,  among  insects  that  live  in  communities  there  is 
the  theory  of  property  in  the  community  alone,  and, 
secondly,  among  those  that  do  not  live  in  communi- 
ties there  is  the  theory  of  private  property  for  those 
who  are  strong  enough  to  claim  it;  but  there  is  seldom 
any  recognition  of  private  property  in  the  individuals  of 
a  community  or  pack.  Among  the  solitary  carnivora 
the  sense  of  private  property  is  most  highly  developed, 
but  it  is  defended  only  by  its  owner.  In  the  larger 
carnivora  private  property  is  defended  by  violence; 
among  the  smaller  rodents  it  is  defended  by  stealth. 
Squirrels  hide  their  store  of  nuts;  seldom  outside  of 
man  is  private  property  respected.  Even  when  carnivora 
unite,  as  wolves  do  to  hunt  in  packs,  there  is  no  recog- 
nition of  private  ownership  by  the  pack;  every  wolf 
takes  what  food  he  can  for  himself,  the  strongest  get- 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     373 

ting  most,  the  weakest  least.  In  no  community  in 
nature  does  there  seem  to  be  the  recognition  of  the 
right  of  one  member  to  accumulate  for  himself,  in  order, 
by  such  accumulation,  to  command  the  services  of  other 
members.  Now  this  is  the  essential  feature  and  the 
essential  evil  of  private  property  and  of  our  existing 
system. 

Collectivism  proposes  to  eliminate  just  this :  it  pro- 
poses to  recognise  private  property  only  in  those  per- 
sonal effects  the  accumulation  of  which  can  never  enable 
one  man  to  control  the  services  of  another;  all  those 
things,  on  the  contrary,  the  accumulation  of  which 
could  control  the  services  of  men,  are  owned  by  the 
entire  community. 

Now,  this  is  the  system  that  we  observe  in  the  most 
highly  developed  communities  furnished  by  nature,  in 
the  hive  of  the  bee  and  the  hill  of  the  ant. 

Collectivism  is  therefore  less  artificial  than  individu- 
alism. Again,  the  competitive  system,  as  has  been 
already  pointed  out,  occasions  distress,  owing  to  the 
tendency  of  production  power  to  outstrip  purchasing 
power.  Outside  of  man  food  is  secured  and  accumu- 
lated directly  for  consumption;  under  our  existing  in- 
dustrial system  food,  clothing,  and  the  other  necessaries 
of  life  are  produced  or  manufactured,  not  for  consump- 
tion, but  for  money.  There  may  be  a  glut  of  food  and 
clothing  in  the  Market,  and  yet  thousands  suffering 
from  the  want  of  both  because  they  have  not  the  money 
to  pay  for  them.  This  is  highly  artificial ;  highly  con- 
trary to  nature.  Collectivism,  by  eliminating  the  dis- 
tressful factor  of  money,  is  returning  to  nature.  Here, 
again,  the  collectivist  plan  is  less  artificial  than  our 
own. 


374  COLLECTIVISM 

§  6.    That  Collectivism  Would  Be  Prejudicial 

TO  Art 

Those  who  are  impressed  by  the  fact  that  art  seems 
to  have  flourished  most  prosperously  at  periods  of  great 
wealth  are  disposed  to  believe  that  collectivism,  which 
is  ineradicably  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  ignorant 
with  the  disappearance  of  wealth,  would  necessarily  in- 
volve the  disappearance  of  art  also.  The  fallacies 
attending  this  reasoning  are  numerous. 

Collectivism,  as  has  been  already  explained,  by  no 
means  involves  disappearance  or  even  a  diminution  of 
wealth.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  believed  that  collectiv- 
ism will  greatly  increase  collective  wealth.  It  is  true 
that  collectivism  means  the  disappearance  of  enormous 
fortunes  in  the  hands  of  a  small  minority,  and  if  the 
possession  by  a  very  few  persons  of  great  wealth  is  nec- 
essary to  the  cultivation  of  art,  then  indeed  must  it  be 
admitted  that  collectivism  would  be  injurious  to  art; 
but  the  notion  that  an  accumulation  of  large  wealth  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  persons  is  necessary  to  the  cultivation 
of  art  is  wholly  wrong.  Undoubtedly,  under  the  com- 
petitive system,  such  an  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  is  necessary  to  the  cultivation  of  art, 
because,  art  being  a  luxury,  no  one  can  indulge  in  it 
who  has  not  great  wealtli,  and  so  art  has  been  the  first 
to  suffer  when  a  period  of  wealth  has  been  succeeded  by 
a  period  of  poverty;  but  with  the  concentration  of 
wealth  in  the  State,  the  extent  to  which  art  will  prevail 
will  depend,  not  upon  the  taste  of  a  few  individuals, 
but  upon  the  wealth  of  the  community,  and  if  it  has 
been  proved  that  a  larger  degree  of  wealth  can  be  main- 
tained, under  a  collectivist  form  of  government,  with 
less  labour  than  under  a  competitive  form,  then  the 
great  obstacle  to  the  cultivation  of  art  will  be  removed, 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM   DISCUSSED     375 

for  the  principal  obstacle  which  now  stands  in  the  way 
of  the  cultivation  of  art  is  the  necessity  under  which 
the  artist  labours  of  earning  bread. 

Collectivism,  then,  does  not  involve  the  diminution 
of  wealth.  Under  our  present  system  wealth  is  con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the 
many.  Collectivism  will  concentrate  wealth  in  the 
State  for  the  benefit  of  the  many,  and  it  is  believed 
that  this  concentration  will  result  in  greater  wealth  than 
has  ever  been  known  before.  It  is  also  believed  that, 
owing  to  the  economy  of  production  and  distribution, 
every  individual  in  the  community  will  have  a  much 
larger  share  of  luxury  than  under  existing  conditions ; 
that  no  one  willing  at  all  to  work  will  lack  either  the 
necessaries  or  the  comforts  of  civilised  life ;  and  if  this 
be  true  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  collectiv- 
ism, so  far  from  prejudicing  art,  will,  on  the  contrary, 
greatly  enhance  it. 

Before,  however,  further  considering  the  effect  of 
collectivism  on  art,  let  us  consider  briefly  the  effect 
upon  art  of  our  existing  competitive  system ;  for  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  of  conditions  more  hostile  to  the 
development  of  art  than  those  which  prevail  to-day. 

If  art  suffers  by  poverty,  it  suffers  almost  to  the  same 
extent  by  wealth ;  no  artist  can  live  unless  he  can  sell 
the  product  of  his  labours.  He  is  to  this  extent,  there- 
fore, the  slave  of  the  wealthy.  The  standard  of  his 
art  is  set  not  by  his  own  ideal,  but  by  the  ideal  of  the 
patron  for  whom  he  works.  If  his  patron  be  a  Julius 
the  Second  or  a  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  he  may  produce  the 
work  of  a  Michael  Angelo,  but  if  his  patron  be  a  Chicago 
pork-packer  or  a  Manchester  cotton-spinner,  his  work  is 
more  likely  to  be  that  which  we  so  often  find  disgracing 
the  walls  of  our  modern  exhibitions. 

Unfortunately   such   patrons  of   art   as    marked   the 


376  COLLECTIVISM 

periods  of  Pericles  and  of  the  Renaissance  are  rare. 
The  tendency  of  commercialism  is  to  degrade  standards 
rather  than  elevate  them,  and  under  these  circumstances 
it  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise  that  wealth  should  have 
produced  more  bad  art  than  good,  or  that  to-day  it 
should  be  engaged  in  diverting  genius  from  working 
out  high  ideals  of  art  in  order  to  immortalise  the  fea- 
tures of  voracious  middlemen. 

But  commercialism  tends  not  only  to  degrade  art  by 
the  general  lowering  of  its  standards,  but  it  degrades 
the  artist  by  forcing  him  to  expedients  which  charac- 
terise promoters  of  patent  medicines.  The  artist  must 
advertise.  He  rarely  can  support  life  while  he  waits  for 
an  artistic  public  to  court  his  studio.  The  public  is 
engaged,  not  in  collecting  works  of  art,  but  in  making 
money ;  and  only  a  very  few,  therefore,  devote  any  con- 
siderable part  of  their  time  to  art.  We  find,  therefore, 
artists  combining,  as  merchants  do,  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  their  works  before  the  eyes  of  reluctant  pur- 
chasers. They  organise  exhibitions,  salons,  art  asso- 
ciations, and  these  promptly  get  into  the  hands  of  the 
most  skilful  manipulators  among  them,  so  that  genius 
tends  to  be  excluded  from  the  very  exhibitions  organised 
in  order  to  bring  genius  to  public  notice.  Sometimes 
the  organisation  of  art  and  literature  is  left  to  the 
State;  it  was  George  III.  who  instituted  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy; Richelieu  who  created  the  Academy  in  France. 
But  the  art  institution,  like  all  other  human  institu- 
tions, is  promptly  captured  by  an  intelligent  and 
interested  minority,  who  use  the  institution  to  advertise 
themselves  at  the  expense  of  the  institution  and  the 
object  for  which  it  was  constituted.  And  so  Whistler 
never  gets  into  the  Royal  Academy,  and  the  doors  of 
the  Immortals  are  closed  to  Balzac  and  to  Alphonse 
Daudet. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED     377 

Commercialism,  too,  creates  the  dealer.  In  the  days 
of  the  soldier  the  patron  of  art  went  himself  to  the 
artist's  studio  and  commissioned  him  to  create  after  his 
own  imaginings.  But  the  merchant  and  manufacturer 
are  too  busy  "higgling"  and  manufacturing  to  search  for 
art.  Just  as  by  the  power  of  the  purse  they  converted 
the  mediseval  knight  into  the  modern  mercenary,  so  to- 
day they  impose  their  standards  upon  art  through  their 
control  of  the  Academy  and  of  the  dealer.  It  is  the 
dealer  to-day  —  the  eternal  middleman  —  who  visits  the 
studios;  and  the  dealer  commissions  the  artist,  not  to 
paint  as  his  heart  may  inspire,  but  to  supply  the  demand 
of  Birmingham  and  Manchester. 

It  is  true  the  dealer  sometimes  educates  the  Acad- 
emy. The  first  paintings  of  Burne-Jones  were  refused 
by  the  Academy.  A  dealer  —  and  the  world  owes  him 
thanks  —  took  up  Burne-Jones,  invested  largely  in 
his  paintings,  needed  the  talismanic  letters  R.  A.  to 
raise  prices  to  a  maximum ;  and  so  Burne-Jones  became 
an  Academician. 

But  our  dealer  and  Academy  alike  weighs  the  tyranny 
of  the  Market.  And  the  Market  in  art  means  portrait- 
painting  and  the  commonplace.  Royalty,  too,  exer- 
cises an  influence  on  literature  and  art.  In  Germany 
both  are  harnessed  to  the  chariot  of  the  Hohenzollerns. 
In  England  the  throne  lifts  from  obscurity  a  Belli,  a 
Winterhalter,  and  an  Edgar  Boehm.  It  condemns 
London  to  the  sculpture  that  disgraces  the  ancient  site 
of  Temple  Bar. 

And  because  Royal  Academies,  aldermen,  and  State 
institutions  at  large  become  captured  by  commercial- 
ism, the  individualist  rails  against  all  interference  of 
the  State  with  art  whatever. 

But  State  intervention  is  in  some  fields  of  art  essen- 
tial; it  is  essential,  for  example,  in  that  of  architec- 


378  COLLECTIYISM 

tures  no  other  instrumentality  can  replace  it.  In  order 
to  be  persuaded  of  this  we  have  but  to  compare  the 
architecture  of  our  American  cities,  where  individualism 
has  been  allowed  to  run  riot,  with  cities  in  Europe 
where  the  State  has  at  certain  periods  been  allowed  to 
exercise  a  beneficent  control.  The  only  city  in  the 
United  States  which  has  any  claim  to  beauty  is  Wash- 
ington, and  Washington  was  laid  out  and  in  great  part 
built  by  the  State.  In  New  York  every  public  square 
is  disgraced  by  the  incongruity  of  buildings  put  up  to 
suit  individual  tastes  and  individual  necessities.  At 
the  very  gateway  of  Central  Park  is  a  block  of  build- 
ings which  may  serve  as  a  comment  on  individualism 
in  architecture.  On  the  south  corner  is  a  huge  Astor 
hotel  nearly  twenty  stories  high,  with  a  showy  fagade  a 
few  yards  wide  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  about  an  acre  of 
hideous  brick  exposed  on  its  side  and  rear.  Next  to  it 
comes  a  building  one-third  its  height,  put  up  and  occu- 
pied by  a  grocer.  Next  to  this  is  a  brick  building  about 
a  third  of  the  height  of  the  grocer's ;  and  next  again, 
on  the  north  corner,  a  wooden  shanty  one  story  high 
occupied  by  a  liquor  saloon. 

In  Paris,  the  beautiful  city  of  the  world,  the  most 
beautiful  of  the  public  places  have  been  laid  out 
entirely  by  the  State.  The  Place  Vendome  was  built 
in  one  piece  by  Louis  XIV.,  the  Place  de  la  Concorde 
by  Louis  XV.,  and  the  Place  de  I'Etoile  by  the  Empire. 
All  the  great  buildings  which  at  every  corner  delight 
the  eye  have  been  built  by  the  State,  —  the  Louvre, 
the  Luxembourg,  the  old  Palais  de  Justice,  the  Sainte 
Chapelle,  the  Pantheon;  and  within  a  few  months  the  In- 
valides,  heretofore  lost  to  view  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  has  been  brought  within  the  landscape  effect  of  the 
Champs-Elys^es  by  a  bridge  and  two  State  buildings. 

If  a  city  is  to  be  beautiful,  it  can  be  so  only  through 
the  collective  action  of  the  State. 


OBJECTIONS   TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED    379 

Again,  if  our  landscapes  are  to  be  saved  from  the 
factory  and  the  railroad,  it  can  be  accomplished  only 
through  the  collective  action  of  the  State. 

And  if  State  institutions  have  heretofore  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  an  interested  minority,  it  is  because  State 
institutions  themselves  are  subject  to  a  higher  sov- 
ereignty than  the  State,  —  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Market. 

Very  few  are  alive  to  the  extent  to  which  industrial- 
ism is  responsible  for  the  ugliness  of  our  modern  life. 
Nowhere  is  this  perhaps  better  illustrated  than  in 
approaching  a  picturesque  town  by  train.  Railroad 
builders,  in  laying  their  tracks  and  designing  their 
yards,  have  considered  nothing  but  how  to  secure  the 
largest  profits  from  the  least  expenditure.  The  result 
of  this  is  that  they  have  never  sought  to  conceal  their 
work  when  unsightly,  or  adorn  it  when  capable  of 
adornment.  Upon  approaching,  therefore,  such  a  town 
as  Angers,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  in  its  traditional  pic- 
turesqueness,  so  thoroughly  has  the  railroad  builder 
devastated  that  portion  of  it  where  the  traveller  lands. 
It  is  only  after  the  traveller  has  got  entirely  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  railroad  builder  that  he  discovers  the  beau- 
ties of  the  place.  This  is  true  of  almost  every  pictur- 
esque town  in  the  civilised  world.  Under  a  collectivist 
form  of  government  the  object  to  be  secured  is  not  the 
making  of  money,  —  it  is  the  happiness  of  the  people ;  all 
would,  therefore,  be  equally  concerned  in  so  disposing 
of  the  railroad  plant  as  to  conceal  it  where  it  could  not 
be  adorned.  Where  it  was  possible,  tracks  would  be 
sunk ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  when  they  must  be  raised, 
they  would  be  laid  upon  viaducts  that  would  add  to 
the  landscape  rather  than  detract  from  it.  There  are 
few  things  more  beautiful  than  an  artistically  con- 
structed bridge.     There  are  few  things  more  painful  to 


380  COLLECTIVISM 

the  eye  than  a  raiboad  bridge  constructed  with  regard 
only  to  economy.  Many  artists  have  undoubtedly  sym- 
pathised with  Ruskin  in  his  onslaughts  upon  railroads, 
but  they  seem  none  of  them  to  have  appreciated  that 
the  hideous  results  of  railroads  were  mainly  due  to 
the  sacrifice  of  every  consideration  to  that  of  making 
money.  There  is  nothing  in  the  modern  spirit  incon- 
sistent with  the  highest  art  provided  only  this  sordid 
motive  for  economy  were  eliminated.  By  this  it  must 
not  be  understood  that  economy  will  be  a  matter  of  no 
importance  to  a  collectivist  State.  On  the  contrary, 
economy,  in  so  far  as  consistent  with  happiness, 
should  be  its  special  care;  the  curse  of  the  present 
system  is  that  economy  is  practised  on  the  public 
for  the  benefit  of  the  few,  whereas  under  a  collectivist 
State  economy  will  be  practised  by  the  public  for  the 
benefit  of  all.  Any  public  work  that  would  perma- 
nently set  up  an  object  of  ugliness  to  the  public  eye 
would,  upon  this  theory,  be  a  thing  not  only  evil  in 
itself,  but  evil  in  its  consequences ;  for  it  would  be  in- 
consistent with  that  high  standard  which  it  is  the  special 
province  of  collectivism  to  attain,  and  would  therefore 
be  inconsistent  with  the  happiness  and  dignity  of  the 
people.  Illustrations  could  be  heaped  one  upon  another, 
showing  the  extent  to  which  beauty  is  sacrificed  by  the 
competitive  system.  There  is  hardly  a  beautiful  spot  in 
the  civilised  world  that  has  escaped  the  degrading  hand 
of  the  advertiser.  There  is  hardly  a  street  in  our  Amer- 
ican cities  which  some  individual  has  not,  out  of  regard 
for  his  pocket,  disgraced  either  by  leaving  a  portion  of 
it  unimproved  and  exposing  thereby  the  blank  party 
walls  of  the  buildings  on  either  side,  or  by  building  to  a 
height  grotesquely  greater  than  his  neighbours  and  ex- 
hibiting his  own  party  walls  in  all  their  dreary  ugliness 
high  above  the  adjacent  roofs.     There  is  hardly  a  cathe- 


OBJECTIONS  TO   COLLECTIVISM  DISCUSSED    381 

dral  on  the  continent  of  Europe  which  is  not  crowded 
ahiiost  out  of  sight  by  private  buildings  erected  to  fill  a 
private  purse.  Let  but  once  this  necessity  for  collect- 
ing rent  disappear,  and  the  State  will  have  no  interest 
in  crowding ;  no  interest  in  making  one  building  higher 
than  another;  for  refusing  to  build  where  a  building  is 
required  by  symmetry,  or  insisting  on  building  where, 
on  the  contrary,  art  demands  an  open  space. 

The  havoc,  too,  which  the  existing  industrial  system 
is  playing  with  our  scenery  is  a  matter  for  public  lamen- 
tation. Few  industries  contribute  more  to  this  than 
that  of  lighting  by  electricity.  The  Swiss  have  discov- 
ered that  waterfalls  can  be  coined  into  gold ;  and  coin 
them  into  gold  they  do  with  reckless  disregard  for  the 
beauty  of  their  vales.  Witness,  for  example,  the  Valley 
of  the  Inn  between  the  Lake  of  St.  Moritz  and  Celerina, 
where,  in  the  space  of  four  hundred  yards,  two  electric 
lighting  ]3lants  have  been  constructed,  and  one  of  the 
most  picturesque  glades  in  Switzerland  converted  into  a 
hideous  factory. 

Before  the  necessity  of  making  money  every  consid- 
eration has  yielded  and  does  to-day  yield,  —  considera- 
tions of  beauty,  of  art,  of  morality ;  it  is  only  by  elimi- 
nating the  necessity  of  making  money,  or  rather  by 
confining  compulsory  labour  to  a  few  hours  of  every 
day,  that  man  can  become  emancipated  from  the  slavery 
of  modern  conditions,  whether  it  be  for  the  develop- 
ment of  individual  character  or  for  the  realisation  of 
artistic  ideals. 

In  a  collectivist  State  there  will  be  artists  recognised 
by  the  State  performing  their  daily  task  for  the  beauti- 
fying of  the  State.  And  there  will  be  by  their  side 
artists  unrecognised  by  the  State;  so  that  if  the  State 
be  controlled  by  inartistic  people  there  will  be,  never- 
theless, thanks  to  the  leisure  furnished  by  collectivism, 


382  COLLECTIVISM 

free  scope  for  the  exercise  and  development  of  indi- 
vidual genius  by  the  side  of  those  favoured  by  the  State. 
Here  is  illustrated  the  essential  difference  between  the 
collectivist  and  the  individualist  scheme  of  government. 
In  the  latter  men  seem  to  be  free,  but  are  in  fact  slaves ; 
in  the  former  men  are  obviously,  during  a  few  hours  of 
the  day,  subject  to  State  rule,  but  during  the  remainder 
of  the  day  they  are  in  fact  free.  And  the  enjoyment  of 
tliis  real  freedom  will  have  for  result  to  create  a  freedom 
in  literature,  music,  and  art  unknown  before.  For  under 
the  competitive  system  genius  is  daily  being  stifled  by 
the  necessity  of  making  bread ;  whereas,  bread  being  pro- 
vided by  the  few  hours  of  compulsory  labour  required 
by  the  State,  the  artist,  the  writer,  and  the  musician 
will  be  free  during  the  remaining  hours  to  work  out  each 
his  own  conceptions  before  a  public  itself  free  to  appre- 
ciate them,  not  under  a  false  standard  of  exchange  value, 
but  for  what  they  have  in  them  that  is  beautiful  and 
true. 


PRACTICAL   WORKING   OF   COLLECTIVISM     383 


CHAPTER  V 

practical  working  of  collectivism 

§  1.  Introductory 

The  previous  chapters  having  laid  down  a  few  of  the 
general  principles  of  the  collectivism  proposed  for  study 
in  this  volume,  we  shall  next  endeavour  briefly  to  sketch 
how  collectivism  can  be  rescued  from  the  dreamland  to 
which  individualists  are  disposed  to  consign  it  and  re- 
duced to  a  practical  programme  applicable  to-da)^ ;  how 
the  change  from  our  present  conditions  may  be  slowly 
effected ;  and  how  the  collectivist  plan,  more  or  less  real- 
ised, may  be  made  to  work  so  as  to  combine  economy  of 
production  with  the  fullest  individual  liberty. 

In  one  sense  of  the  word  collectivism  is  already  a  part 
of  our  existing  political  programme,  and  already  to  a 
considerable  extent  realised.  Every  public  park  is  a 
tribute  to  collectivism.  It  is  the  appropriation  of  land 
by  the  State  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  public.  The 
post-office  is  a  demonstration  of  the  utility  of  collectiv- 
ism; for  through  the  post-office  the  State  undertakes 
the  collection,  transportation,  and  distribution  of  letters 
and  small  parcels.  And  the  unreasonableness  of  some 
individualist  opposition  to  collectivism  is  made  clear 
when  we  consider  that  while  no  individualist  objects  to 
the  State  carrying  small  parcels,  any  programme  that 
would  suggest  the  advisableness  of  the  State  carrying 
large  parcels,  live  stock,  or  human  beings  would  be  stig- 
matised in  the  United  States  as  rank  socialism.     And 


384  COLLECTIVISM 

yet  this  rank  socialism  is  peacefully  and  beneficially 
realised  in  Belgium  and  other  European  States.  And 
in  Australia  the  State  not  only  owns  the  railroads,  but 
acts  as  salesman  of  the  products  transported.  So  also 
in  the  United  States  our  cities  generally  own  their  water- 
works, but  seldom  their  gas-works ;  whereas  in  England 
the  reverse  is  true,  and  correspondingly  the  ownership 
of  gas  by  the  city  is  denounced  as  immoral  by  owners 
of  gas  stock  in  New  York;  whereas  shareholders  in 
water  companies  in  London  look  with  approval  on  the 
ownership  by  the  city  of  its  lighting  plant,  but  condemn 
city  ownership  of  water-works  as  dangerous  socialism. 
It  seems  probable,  therefore,  that  much  of  the  opposi- 
tion to  collectivism  is  due  to  so-called  "vested  interests," 
• —  the  vested  interests  of  shareholders  in  gas  and  water 
stock,  —  and  when  we  remember  the  riot  caused  by  the 
rag-pickers  when,  in  1832,  the  Parisian  authorities  for- 
bade the  exposure  of  rags  in  the  streets  owing  to  the 
danger  of  cholera  through  infection,  when  we  remember 
that  the  rag-pickers  based  their  right  to  indignation  and 
revolt  upon  their  vested  interests  in  rags,  and  found 
many  individualists  to  espouse  their  cause,  we  may  well 
look  with  scrutiny  upon  opposition  to  collectivism 
which  is  marshalled  under  the  banners  of  "vested 
interests." 

§  2.   Preparedness  of  Different  Countries 
FOR  Collectivism 

Singularly  enough,  the  United  States  presents  a  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  rest  of  the  civilised  world  as  to  its 
maturity  for  the  adoption  of  collectivism.  As  regards 
the  actual  adoption  of  the  collectivist  programme  it  is 
behind,  but  as  regards  commercial  development  it  is 
ahead,  of   other   countries.     In  other   words,    while  in 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     385 

Europe  and  Australia  the  ownership  by  the  State  of 
public  utilities  is  far  more  extensive  than  in  the  United 
States,  the  development  of  commercial  enterprise  with 
us  has,  in  the  necessary  evolution  of  individualism  under 
the  spur  of  intelligence,  prepared  our  industries  for  pur- 
chase by  the  State  to  a  singular  degree,  and  presents  a 
remarkable  example  of  how  individualism  carries  within 
itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  destruction.  For  just  as  the 
freedom  of  contract  which  ushered  in  the  industrial 
revolution  of  the  close  of  last  century  carried  within 
itself  the  seeds  that  eventually  destroyed  freedom  of 
contract  by  the  organisation  of  trade  unions,  employ- 
ers' associations  and  trade  alliances,  so  also  competi- 
tion has  ended  in  the  United  States  by  destroying  com- 
petition in  many  trades  through  the  organisation  of 
trusts.  This  is,  perhaps,  due  to  the  fact  that,  politics 
not  furnishing  in  our  country  the  prizes  offered  in 
Europe,  genius  has  abandoned  the  political  arena  for 
that  of  business,  and  the  progress  made  in  the  develop- 
ment of  business  has  therefore  been  more  rapid  in  the 
United  States  than  in  Europe. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  not  easy  to  decide 
what  country  to  choose  as  the  arena  for  our  hypothetical 
collectivism:  the  United  States,  which  is  behindhand  in 
the  actual  adoption  of  collectivism  and  ahead  in  com- 
mercial preparedness  for  it,  or  some  European  State 
where  the  converse  is  true.  And  indeed  this  suggests 
one  of  the  difficulties  that  attends  the  hypothetical 
treatment  of  the  question. 


§  3.   Theories  of  Karl  Marx  and  the 
Fabians 

For  not  only  do  conditions  vary  in  every  State  to  start 
with,  but  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture  what  direction 

25 


386  COLLECTIVISM 

the  movement  may  take  at  the  various  stages  of  its  de- 
velopment. Karl  Marx  was  probably  wrong  in  his  con- 
jecture. To  him  conditions  were  becoming  rapidly 
worse  and  worse  to  the  unwealthy,  and  he  therefore  con- 
cluded that  they  would  ultimately  become  so  intolerable 
that  a  new  social  State  would  be  born  out  of  the  revolu- 
tion to  which  the  concentration  of  capital  inevitably 
seemed  to  tend.  But  although  capital  has  in  our 
country  continued  to  become  concentrated  in  a  few 
hands,  wages  have  increased,  hours  of  labour  have  di- 
minished, and  the  small  farmer  and  tradesman,  though 
in  certain  places  harassed  and  impoverished,  cannot  at 
large  be  said  to  have  been  expropriated  in  accordance 
with  the  prophecy  of  Karl  Marx.  The  same  is  true  in 
Europe. 

The  Fabian  theory  of  collectivism  seems  more  sound 
than  that  of  Marx.  According  to  this  theory,  collec- 
tivism is  to  creep  upon  the  ci\dlised  world  by  invisible 
steps,  and  is,  perhaps,  never  to  be  realised  in  its  en- 
tirety. To  this  last  point  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  give 
a  few  moments'  consideration,  for  it  is  one  upon  which 
there  exists  a  widespread  misunderstanding.  The  first 
questions  a  wealthy  inquirer  is  likely  to  put  upon  tliis 
question  of  collectivism  are :  "  Will  there  be  any  domes- 
tic servants  in  your  collectivism  ?  shall  I  Ije  able  to  keep 
my  horses  ?  where  shall  I  go  for  my  grouse-shooting  ?  " 
It  is  a  pit}^  perhaps,  that  the  wealthy  are  so  little  alive 
to  the  misery  occasioned  by  present  conditions  as  to  be 
unable  to  accept  a  programme  that  looks  to  the  elimina- 
tion of  this  misery  without  first  assuring  themselves  that 
it  shall  not  interfere  with  a  single  one  of  their  comforts 
and  amusements.  No  wealthy  man  who  was  animated 
by  a  religious  spirit  would  take  this  view  of  a  great 
social  problem.  But  we  must  reluctantly  admit  that  the 
number  of  wealthy  who  are  willing  to  sacrifice  a  single 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM      387 

amusement  for  the  diminution  of  harlotry  and  pain  are 
few ;  and  that  if  the  wealthy  are  to  any  important  de- 
gree to  become  interested  in  socialism,  it  must  be  on 
the  condition  that  the  collectivist  programme  will  not 
sensibly  affect  their  comforts  and  may  perhaps  avert  an 
impending  danger.  To  them,  then,  let  it  be  at  once 
made  clear  that  collectivism  involves  no  unremunerated 
expropriation,  no  spoliation  of  deer  forests,  no  destruc- 
tion of  game.  They  may  adopt  collectivism  with  as  little 
real  sacrifice  of  personal  convenience  as  when  of  old  the 
Roman  Senators  adopted  the  ritual  of  Christianity.  In- 
deed, they  may  derive  from  it  some  of  the  advantages 
which  the  corrupt  Roman  Empire  derived  from  the  still 
honest  Christian  ofQcial.  For  just  as  the  days  of  the 
Empire  were  prolonged  by  the  infusion  into  its  admin- 
istration of  Christians  unpolluted  by  the  pervading 
corruption,  so  the  days  of  the  millionaire  may  be  pro- 
longed by  the  avoidance  of  the  Revolution  prophesied 
by  Karl  Marx,  and  in  some  countries  to-day  by  no  means 
impossible. 

Adopting,  then,  the  Fabian  theory  of  gradual  rather 
than  revolutionary  development,  let  us  consider  some  of 
the  phases  through  which  this  development  might  pass 
in  our  own  country,  —  the  United  States  of  America. 

§  4.  Hypothetical  Development  of  Collectivism 
EST  THE  United  States 

(a)  Present  Political  Conditions 

Most  cities  of  the  United  States  are  to-day  adminis- 
tered by  an  organisation  primarily  constructed  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  control  of  municipal  spoils,  and 
secondarily  associated  with  one  of  the  national  parties. 
In  Philadelphia  the  organisation  in  control  is  Republican; 


388  COLLECTIVISM 

in  New  York  it  is  Democratic.  Obviously  the  party  not 
in  control  is  willing  to  adopt  any  policy  not  too  incon- 
sistent with  its  national  platform  which  seems  likely  to 
oust  its  rival  from  the  city  offices ;  it  naturally,  therefore, 
comes  to  pass  that  the  party  not  in  control  is  generally 
the  party  of  municipal  reform,  because  in  the  first 
place  it  is  the  natural  ally  of  the  independent  reformer, 
and  in  the  second  place,  being  driven  by  this  chronic 
though  reluctant  alliance  to  favour  good  and  oppose  bad 
administration,  it  attracts  to  itself  the  moral  element  of 
the  community.  There  is  therefore  in  every  city  a 
national  party  not  in  control  which  is  willing  to  adopt  a 
programme  likely  to  dispossess  the  enemy,  provided  this 
programme  be  not  too  violently  inconsistent  with  the 
national  platform. 

The  wage-earner  is  the  element  in  the  voting  popula- 
tion which  the  party  not  in  control  has  to  secure  in  order 
to  dispossess  the  enemy,  because,  in  the  first  place,  he 
represents  a  large  vote,  and,  in  the  second  place,  he  is 
the  natural  ally  of  the  organisation  in  control. 

Upon  this  last  point  it  is  difficult  to  be  too  emphatic. 
The  wage-earner  generally  supports  the  organisation  in 
control,  however  corrupt,  for  two  reasons :  In  the  first 
place  he  has  little  advantage  to  derive  from  honest  gov- 
ernment. He  pays  no  taxes;  he  is  not  aware  of  the 
incidental  consequences  of  high  taxes  on  rent,  etc. ;  he 
is  secretly  and  sometimes  avowedly  pleased  to  see  the 
rich  bled  by  the  organisation  to  which  he  belongs. 

In  the  second  place,  if  he  derives  no  direct  advantage 
himself  from  the  organisation,  his  friends  and  his  rela- 
tives do :  one  is  a  barkeeper  interested  in  violating  the 
law  regarding  early  closing;  another  is  a  policeman  in- 
terested in  levying  tribute  on  the  barkeeper,  who  is 
himself  thankful  to  be  permitted  by  the  protection  of 
the  organisation  to  secure  large  profits  during  Sunday 


PRACTICAL  WORinNG   OF  COLLECTIVISM     389 

and  late  hours  by  the  payment  of  a  relatively  small 
tribute  to  the  policeman ;  another  is  a  street-cleaner  at 
two  dollars  a  day;  another  is  a  public-school  teacher; 
another  is  employed  in  the  Building  Department,  an 
employment  furnishing  numerous  opportunities  for  petty 
plunder. 

Absence  of  sensible  interest  in  good  government,  and 
an  indefined  but  no  less  for  that  reason  ineffectual 
sympathy  with  bad  government,  keeps  the  wage-earner 
loyal  to  the  organisation  in  control. 

He  is,  however,  by  no  means  incapable  of  revolt 
against  the  organisation.  On  the  contrary,  the  moment 
the  small  stake  he  has  in  the  government  is  attacked,  he 
at  once  makes  himself  felt.  The  public  parks  are  his, 
and  any  attack  upon  them  is  at  once  resented ;  the  down- 
throw of  Tammany  Hall  in  1870  was  preluded  by  an  out- 
burst of  popular  protest  against  a  supposed  expropriation 
of  Central  Park;  and  that  of  1893  began  with  the 
attempt  of  a  few  Tammany  horse -fanciers  to  take  a  strip 
from  the  same  park  for  a  speedway.  Moreover,  willing 
though  he  may  be  to  see  the  policeman  add  to  his  salary 
by  an  occasional  present  from  a  willing  saloon-keeper, 
the  indignation  of  the  people  blazed  in  New  York  when 
it  was  revealed  that  the  police  had  become  so  far 
corrupt  as  to  extort  money  from  a  widow  by  depriving 
her  of  the  custody  of  her  children. 


(5)    Extension  of  Municipal  Otvnership  and 
A  dministra  tio  n 

The  wage-earner  is  therefore  by  no  means  irrespon- 
sive either  to  an  attack  upon  his  own  slender  rights  or 
to  an  attack  upon  the  rights  of  the  defenceless.  It 
does  not,  then,  seem  unreasonable   to  believe   that  he 


390  COLLECTIVISM 

would  respond  to  and  support  a  programme  which  sen- 
sibly increased  his  stake  in  good  government,  and  by  so 
doing  enhanced  his  value  and  dignity  as  a  citizen.  For 
example,  the  high  price  charged  for  gas  by  the  private 
corporations  which  furnish  gas  to  New  York  make  the 
use  of  gas  as  fuel  impossible  to  the  unwealthy,  and  sub- 
jects them  to  the  necessity  of  using  coal  which  they 
have  to  buy  in  small  quantities  at  correspondingly  high 
prices  because  they  have  no  room  to  store  it.  If,  instead 
of  having  to  pay  to  a  private  company  $1.15  per  thou- 
sand feet  for  gas,  the  city  were  to  manufacture  its  own 
gas  and  furnish  it,  as  Glasgow  and  Manchester  do,  at 
fifty  cents  a  thousand  feet,  the  city  would  be  conferring 
a  benefit  to  every  wage-earner  which  in  dollars  would 
mount  up  to  three  figures  at  the  end  of  the  year;  he 
would  then  for  the  first  time  realise  the  advantage  of 
good  municipal  government  and  the  importance  of  pre- 
serving it  from  jobbery,  sinecurism,  and  corruption. 

The  same  is  true  of  transportation.  At  present  the 
cost  of  running  a  street  railway  by  electricity  is  probably 
small  enough  to  permit  of  three-cent  fares  without  loss. 
The  existing  companies,  capitalised  at  figures  far  exceed- 
ing cost  and  built  in  large  part  with  the  proceeds  of  bonds 
bearing  four  per  cent  interest,  are  making  fortunes  for 
their  promoters.  Were  the  city  to  buy  these  tramways 
at  an  honest  price,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  price  that  would 
fairly  compensate  the  promoters,  not  only  for  outlay, 
but  also  for  the  courage  and  ability  they  have  sho^yn  in 
bringing  tramways  to  their  present  state  of  improve- 
ment, —  the  city  would  not  only  immediately  save  the 
difference  between  the  four  per  cent  paid  by  the  present 
companies  on  their  bonds  and  the  high  dividends  dis- 
tributed on  their  stock  on  the  one  hand  and  the  two  per 
cent  paid  by  the  city  on  the  other,  but  it  would  also 
benefit  by  the  economy  it  could  bring  into  the  original 


PRACTICAL  WORKING   OF   COLLECTIVISM     391 

cost  of  new  tramways  in  as  yet  undeveloped  thorough- 
fares. 

Municipal  ownership  and  administration  of  lighting 
and  transportation  plants  would  not  only  give  the  wage- 
earner  a  substantial  stake  in  the  city,  but  would  result 
in  an  appreciable  saving  to  him  of  money  and  make  him 
for  the  first  part  a  veritable  partner  in  municipal  enter- 
prises. It  is  true  that  such  an  experiment  might  not 
succeed ;  it  might  result  in  the  construction  by  the  city 
of  lines  that  would  not  pay ;  it  might  result  in  extrava- 
gance ;  in  a  deliberate  increase  of  officials  for  the  pur- 
pose of  increasing  municipal  spoils  and  securing  political 
support.  And  if  the  carrying  out  of  this  programme  is 
left  to  Tammany  Hall,  such  will  probably  be  the  case. 
But  if  the  programme  is  presented  to  the  people  and 
carried  out  by  men  of  conscience  such  as  exist  in  New 
York,  there  still  is  a  chance  of  its  succeeding  as  well  in 
New  York  as  in  Glasgow,  Manchester,  and  other  cities 
of  England  and  Germany.  The  wage-earners  of  New 
York  are  rapidly  learning  the  value  to  them  of  such  a 
programme ;  they  will  one  day  certainly  insist  upon  it ; 
the  question  which  men  of  conscience  and  education 
have  to  decide  is  whether  they  will  wait  to  see  it  increase 
the  power  of  Tammany  Hall,  or,  by  proposing  and  carry- 
ing it  out  themselves,  secure  for  it  the  advantages 
economic,  political,  and  moral  derivable  therefrom. 

There  will,  of  course,  be  pessimists  to  say  that  the 
experiment  will  fail ;  to  such,  two  answers  can  be  made : 
The  first,  that  a  properly  understood  political  faith  will 
not  permit  the  possibility  of  failure  to  paralyse  an  effort 
which  is  in  itself  commendable.^  The  second,  that  if  the 
experiment  fails,  it  will  only  show  that  our  cities  are 
not  yet  fit  for  the  collectivist  programme.  It  will  not 
prove  that  the  collectivist  programme  is  itself  impracti- 

1  See  book  ii.  ch.  vi.  §  3. 


392  COLLECTIVISM 

cal,  for  European  cities  have  already  shown  themselves 
fit  for  it.  That  Americans  will  willingly  admit  them- 
selves inferior  to  other  nations  in  this  respect  is  not  con- 
sistent with  American  traditions,  and  need  not  therefore 
prevent  our  proceeding  with  our  hypothetical  collectiv- 
ism. It  may  take  time  for  the  wage-earner  to  learn  the 
advantages  of  honesty  and  the  necessity  of  vigilance. 
But  he  will  probably  learn  it  at  last ;  and  then  he  will 
have  fitted  himself  for  a  new  advance.  But  assuming 
the  worst,  —  that  he  does  not,  —  we  shall  have  then  to 
admit  that  we  are  unfit  for  collectivism,  and  proceed 
with  our  hypothesis  in  Europe  rather  than  the  United 
States,  —  an  assumption  which,  be  it  clearly  understood, 
is  believed  to  be  unjustifiable  and  superfluous. 

Assuming,  then,  that  eventually  a  large  number  of 
our  cities  have  learned  the  art  of  furnishing  cheap  and 
good  gas  and  transportation,  the  next  natural  step  for 
them  to  take  is  to  apply  post-office  methods  to  the  city 
distribution  of  coal,  ice,  milk,  and  all  those  things  as  to 
the  production  of  which  there  does  not  enter  the  element 
of  skill  to  an  appreciable  degree.  The  foolish  manner 
in  which  these  things  are  now  distributed  has  already 
been  described ;  an  economy  of  certainly  thirty  per  cent 
would  be  effected  by  delivering  through  one  agency  from 
door  to  door  instead  of  through  a  thousand  agencies  at 
spots  widely  distant  from  one  another.  Municipal  dis- 
tribution, however,  need  not  and  should  not  put  an  end 
to  private  enterprise.  Some  persons  will  want  to  have 
coal  of  a  particular  quality,  ice  made  by  a  particular 
process,  milk  from  a  particular  farm.  Let  these  remain 
gratified  and  let  private  enterprise  be  allowed  to  gratify 
them ;  so  far  let  individualism  be  not  only  tolerated,  but 
even  fostered ;  for  here  we  come  to  a  point  in  our  col- 
lectivist  scheme  which  cannot  too  much  be  insisted  on. 
There  are  certain  functions,  such  as  tramways,  which  are 


PEACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     393 

in  their  nature  monopolies;  no  more  than  one  pair  of 
rails  can  be  conveniently  laid  in  a  street.  There  are 
other  functions  which  in  their  nature  partake  of  mo- 
nopoly without  being  essentially  so,  as,  for  example, 
bridges  and  ferries;  there  is  a  limit  to  the  number  of 
bridges  or  ferries  that  can  be  profitably  used.  There 
are  other  functions,  such  as  the  distribution  of  coal, 
which,  while  they  can  conveniently  and  economically 
be  performed  by  the  city,  can  at  the  same  time  be  per- 
formed by  private  enterprise.  It  is  no  part  of  intelligent 
collectivism  to  refuse  to  private  enterprise  all  the  hberty 
it  needs  in  those  fields  where  it  can  be  exercised  without 
public  detriment ;  indeed,  it  will  be  later  seen  that  it  is 
upon  this  liberty  that  collectivism  depends  to  keep  it 
free  from  the  levelling  tendency  of  which  individualists 
accuse  it. 

(c)  Extension  of  National  Ownersliip  and  Administration 

While  cities  are  learning  to  furnish  gas  and  transpor- 
tation, and  to  distribute  ice,  coal,  milk,  bread,  and  all 
the  other  articles  that  enter  into  necessary  daily  con- 
sumption, the  extension  of  municipal  activity  cannot  but 
have  its  echo  in  national  affairs.  One  of  the  national 
parties  will  become  alive  to  the  fact  that  what  a  city  can 
do  with  city  utilities  a  nation  can  do  with  national 
utilities.  It  is  impossible  to  predict  which  of  the 
national  parties  is  most  likely  first  to  adopt  this  pro- 
gramme. It  may  seem  to-day  as  though  it  belonged 
most  naturally  to  the  Democratic  party,  which  poses  as 
the  champion  of  the  wage-earner.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, however,  that  the  Republican  party  is  endeared 
to  the  workingman  by  the  conviction  that  protection 
secures  him  high  wages  and  that  it  is  the  party  of  cen- 
tralisation, whereas  the  Democratic  party,  by  repudiat- 


394  COLLECTIVISM 

ing  protection,  brought  about  the  closing  of  factories  in 
1893  and  is  the  party  of  decentralisation.  Moreover,  if 
the  municipalisation  of  public"  utilities  is  to  be  accom- 
plished by  the  educated  element  in  New  York,  it  is  the 
Republican  party  that  must  do  it,  not  the  Democratic ; 
while  if  it  is  to  be  so  accomplished  in  Philadelphia,  it  is 
the  Democratic  party  that  must  do  it,  not  the  Republi- 
can, Again,  monopolies  are  being  so  harried  by  State 
legislatures  that  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  they  may 
themselves  seek  salvage  at  the  hands  of  the  national 
government.  For  example,  the  Oil  Trust  is  being 
attacked  in  almost  every  State  in  the  Union;  some  of 
these  attacks  have  gone  so  far  as  actually  to  indict  the 
magnates  at  the  head  of  it.  If  these  attacks  become  in 
the  future  as  dangerous  as  they  have  been  heretofore 
persistent,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  magnates  may 
themselves  propose  to  sell  out  at  a  reasonable  figure. 
Now,  no  city  or  State  could  buy  out  the  Oil  Trust,  for 
the  field  of  its  operations  is  confined  to  no  city  or  State, 
but  extends  over  the  whole  United  States  and  elsewhere. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  to  the  national  gov- 
ernment alone  that  the  Oil  Trust  could  sell ;  and  it  is 
the  Republican  party  which,  both  through  its  traditions 
in  the  past  and  its  affiliations  in  the  present,  is  likely  to 
accomplish  such  an  arrangement  with  the  least  diffi- 
culty. It  is  impossible,  then,  to  say  whicli  of  the  two 
parties  will  eventually  propose  this  programme ;  the  only 
thing  that  can  be  said  in  the  connection  with  some 
assurance  is,  that  without  doubt  the  people  will  ulti- 
mately insist  upon  it.  Indeed,  if  to-day  either  one  of 
the  parties  could  drop  every  issue  save  one,  —  public 
ownership  of  public  utilities,^  —  it  would  probably  sweep 

1  This  phrase  may  not  be  an  accurate  one,  but  it  has  been  so  currently 
used  in  the  United  States  that  it  has  become  useful  in  spite  of  slight 
inaccuracy. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     395 

the  country  with  an  overwhelming  majority.  For 
every  man  who  voted  for  Bryan  in  1896  would  vote  for 
this  platform,  and  it  would  also  have  the  votes  of  the 
many  workingmen  who  voted  against  Bryan,  especially 
in  the  Eastern  States,  because  they  were  persuaded  that 
free  silver  would  diminish  the  purchasing  power  of  their 
daily  wage.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  possible 
that  the  question  itself  will  not  become  an  issue  between 
the  parties,  but  that  both  parties  will  take  it  up,  the 
Republican  seeking  to  centralise  the  purchase  of  public 
utilities  in  the  nation,  the  Democratic  seeking  to  decen- 
tralise them  in  the  cities  and  the  States.  When  this 
time  comes,  the  danger  is  that  public  utilities  will  be 
absorbed  by  the  government  with  inordinate  rapidity ;  it 
will  undertake  more  than  it  will  at  that  time  be  able  to 
accomplish ;  a  reaction  will  set  in  and  Individualism  will 
furnish  a  wholesome  reaction.  But  if  it  be,  indeed, 
true  that  collectivism  furnishes  the  higher  ideal  of  gov- 
ernment, the  truest  solution  of  the  economic  problem, 
the  only  realisation  of  justice  soundly  understood,  the 
reaction  will  give  way  once  more  to  a  further  advance; 
the  State  will  have  got  rid  of  its  vacuoles.^ 

Without  endeavouring  to  prophesy  at  what  periods 
reaction  will  set  in  and  at  what  periods  collectivism 
will  renew  its  onward  march,  let  us  now  consider  briefly 
how  the  economic  changes  can^  rather  than  how  they 
will^  be  brought  about. 

{cT)   Puhlic  Stores 

Once  the  cities  have  learned  the  art  of  distributing  the 
necessaries  of  life,  and  the  nation  has  learned  the  art  of 
running  railroads  and  administering  the  Oil  Trust,  the 
Sugar  Trust,  the  Whiskey  Trust,  and  the  other  large 

1  See  vol.  i,  pp.  160.  163. 


396  COLLECTIVISM 

trusts  now  in  existence,  the  State  will  have  become 
the  owner  and  manager  of  enormous  business  interests. 
The  ownership  of  the  railroads  will  naturally  lead  to  the 
ownership  of  elevators ;  the  United  States  will  learn  a 
lesson  from  South  Australia  and  undertake  the  sale  of 
live  stock  and  farm  produce ;  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture will  no  longer  confine  itself,  as  now,  to  advice, 
but  will  undertake  administration.  Instead  of  transport- 
ing cattle,  as  Armour  once  did,  from  Kansas  to  Chicago, 
to  be  cut  up  there  and  returned  for  distribution  as  meat 
to  Kansas,  the  department  will  either  itself  institute 
packing-houses  in  every  suitable  centre,  or  induce  the 
City  or  State  to  institute  them.  And  the  price  of  coal 
being  for  the  most  part  made  up  of  the  cost  of  transpor- 
tation, ^  the  nation  will  acquire  coal-fields,  and  thus  fur- 
nish the  cities  and  citizens  with  coal  at  a  lower  price. 
The  government,  national  and  municipal,  —  which  for 
the  purpose  of  brevity  we  will  now  unite  in  the  single 
word  State,  —  will  become  the  employer  of  labour 
to  so  large  an  extent  that  it  will  be  easy  to  create  in  all 
large  centres  State  stores  at  which  goods  will  be  fur- 
nished at  a  small  profit,  presumably  lower  than  at  the 
department  stores.^  But  goods  will  be  furnished  at 
cost  to  all  those  who  are  provided  with  State  orders. 
Every  official  will  be  given  the  option  to  take  his  wages 
either  in  currency,  or  in  State  orders,  or  in  both,  in  the 
proportion  he  may  name.  The  State  order  is  at  this 
stage  of  collectivisyii  a  transferable  order  on  the  public 
stores  expressed  in  money.  If  a  workman  earns  two 
dollars  a  day  and  he  takes  his  entire  pay  in  State  orders, 
he  will  daily  receive  orders  on  the  public  stores  for  goods 

1  In  many  States,  e.  g.  Colorado,  coal  can  be  profitably  extracted  from 
the  mine  at  $1  a  ton.     It  costs  the  consumer  $4  to  §4.50, 

2  The  expression  "  department  stores"  is  used  in  the  United  States  to 
mean  all  large  shops  in  which  there  are  many  departments. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING   OF   COLLECTIVISM     397 

to  a  value  of  two  dollars.     The  State  order  will  read: 

"Good   for  $ at  the  public  store."     As  the   State 

order  will  have  an  advantage  at  the  public  stores,  the 
workman  will  presumably  take  at  least  a  part  of  his 
wages  in  State  orders ;  and  as  the  State  order  will  go 
to  a  small  premium  in  view  of  the  advantage  to  the 
non-official  of  securing  a  part  of  the  favour  allowed  to 
these  State  orders  at  the  stores,  it  is  probable  that  the 
official  will  take  all  his  wages  in  State  orders.  Dur- 
ing this  period  the  State  will  acquire  the  experience 
necessary  for  determining  the  exchange  value  of  the 
commodities  sold.  It  will  know  the  cost  to  the  State 
of  meat  per  pound,  of  bread  per  loaf,  of  coal  per  bushel ; 
it  will  know  the  price  at  which  it  can  be  sold  to  the 
official  with  a  margin  for  safety,  and  the  price  at  which  it 
can  be  sold  profitably  to  the  public  without  competing  too 
severely  with  the  department  stores  and  private  enter- 
prise in  general.  The  profit  made  will  serve  to  reduce 
taxation  for  all,  and  to  create  a  sinking-fund  for  the 
redemption  of  bonds  issued  in  purchase  of  public  utili- 
ties. Public  stores  mark  a  great  stride  towards  col- 
lectivism, for  they  will  lead  to  the  gradual  purchase  of 
large  tracts  of  farming-land,  the  building  of  improved 
dwellings,  and  the  slow  conversion  of  the  retail  dealer 
into  a  government  official.  And  they  can  do  this  with- 
out despotism  or  occasioning  distress.  A  sound  scheme 
for  establishing  public  stores  will  provide  for  the  issue 
of  bonds  necessary  to  buy  up  the  stock  of  honest  retail- 
ers who  run  danger  of  insolvency  through  State  compe- 
tition. Public  stores  will  not  necessarily  occasion  more 
insolvency  than  department  stores.  Small  retailers  have 
on  their  side  the  advantages  of  neighbourhood,  personal 
acquaintance,  and  personal  taste,  and  they  may  continue 
to  have  this  advantage  even  in  the  final  development  of 
collectivism,  as  will  be  later  shown,  thus  leaving  a  large 


398  COLLECTIVISM 

latitude  for  individual  enterprise  and  full  scope  for  the 
satisfaction  of  personal  taste. 

Obviously  the  introduction  of  public  stores  marks  a 
phase  of  development  fraught  with  danger  and  likely  to 
occasion  a  reaction  in  favour  of  individualism.  For  if 
it  proceeds  too  rapidly,  the  State  bonds  offered  in  pur- 
chase of  stock  may  go  to  a  dangerous  discount,  and  more 
retailers  may  apply  for  State  employment  than  the  State 
can  usefully  employ.  Hence  the  need  for  great  caution 
and  deliberateness  in  this  part  of  the  programme,  —  a 
caution  and  deliberateness  which  is  likely  to  be  wanting 
if  this  movement  be  left  entirely  in  the  hands  of  dema- 
gogues or  the  discontented  poor.  But  if  this  part  of  the 
process  is  in  the  hands  of  such  men  as  to-day  manage 
the  administration  of  large  trade  unions  and  successful 
co-operative  stores  backed  by  men  of  wealth,  leisure, 
and  education,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  it  may  be 
introduced  with  sufficient  self-control  to  avoid  either 
widespread  distress  or  national  bankruptcy.  In  such 
case  the  State  will  already  have  assumed  the  principal 
features  of  a  coUectivist  community;  that  is  to  say,  it 
will  be  the  owner  of  a  sufficiently  large  part  of  the 
national  land  and  other  sources  of  production  to  show 
the  results  of  collectivist  economy  in  higher  wages  and 
shorter  hours  of  labour,  and  State  orders  will  have 
largely  replaced  coin  as  internal  medium  of  exchange. 
As  soon  as  the  State  has  become  a  sufficiently  large 
owner  of  the  sources  of  production  to  be  able  to  employ 
all  that  part  of  the  population  which  desires  State  em- 
ployment without  too  great  a  cost,  it  will  then,  perhaps, 
have  attained  the  last  stage  consistent  with  human  im- 
perfection; it  will  not  have  attained  the  ideal;  but  it 
may  take  centuries  to  attain  the  ideal,  and  man  may  be 
incapable  of  it  altogether.  Let  us,  then,  consider  a 
little  more  closely  this  phase  which  for  the  purpose  of 
brevity  we  may  call  Partial  Collectivism. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     399 


(e)    Farm  Colonies  —  Pauperism,  Prostitution,  and  Crime 

There  is  one  important  function  of  the  State  the  de- 
velopment of  which  has  not  been  considered,  —  the 
work  of  what  in  New  York  City  was  formerly  called  the 
Department  of  Charity  and  Correction.  These  branches 
have  lately  been  separated  for  administrative  reasons, 
but  they  form  part  of  the  same  subject,  so  far  as  the 
student  is  concerned,  for  they  deal  with  the  same  prob- 
lem, —  the  treatment  of  the  waste  of  our  population. 
The  subject  has  been  already  discussed.^  No  more  will 
be  added  here  than  is  necessary  to  show  how  an  intel- 
ligent treatment  of  this  waste  will  dovetail  in  to  the 
collectivist  programme.  The  pauper  and  criminal  —  an 
exception  being  made  of  the  crimes  passionels  which  form 
a  relatively  unimportant  part  of  offences  now  punished 
in  our  criminal  courts  —  constitute  the  waste  of  our 
population,  —  that  is  to  say,  that  part  of  it  which  is  un- 
fitted for  social  life  by  moral  or  physical  degeneracy. 
The  Dutch,  and  more  lately  the  Belgian,  method  of 
treating  the  pauper  and  the  criminal  as  incapables  is 
the  only  one  that  recommends  itself  to  mercy  and  to 
common  sense.  They  are  put  into  farm  colonies,  where 
they  are  induced  to  do  the  most  work  possible,  and  in  a 
manner  to  contribute  most  to  their  own  support.  The 
inducement  offered  is  of  two  kinds :  there  is  a  cell  with 
bread  and  water  for  the  recalcitrant ;  and  there  is  a  small 
wage  which  can  be  spent  in  tobacco,  tea,  and  other  lux- 
uries for  the  industrious.  Experience  shows  that  the  cell 
is  never  used  with  paupers,  and  seldom  with  criminals. 
Criminals  are   kept  in   totally  different  colonies   from 

1  Ante,  book  i.  ch.  iii.  §  7  (a).  Poverty  ;  and  Evolution  and  Effort ; 
ch.  X.,  The  Problem  of  Pauperism. 


400  COLLECTIVISM 

paupers.  It  is  probable  that  as  yet  the  differentiation 
between  different  classes  of  criminals  and  different 
classes  of  paupers  is  extremely  incomplete,  and  that  a 
State  which  gave  proper  attention  to  this,  the  most 
burning  question  of  social  life,  would  arrange  for  a  large 
variety  of  colonies  through  which  criminals  could  grad- 
uate one  after  another,  and  thus  become  ultimately  fitted 
for  social  life.  Moreover,  when  the  State  became  a  large 
landowner,  the  difficult  problem  how  to  secure  employ- 
ment for  the  graduate  of  a  pauper  colony  would  be 
solved.  It  would  then  become  possible  for  the  State  to 
devote  some  attention  to  a  fraction  of  our  waste  popula- 
tion that  has  heretofore  proved  an  insoluble  problem,  — 
the  prostitute.  That  a  State  professing  and  calling  itself 
Christian  should  have  tolerated  all  these  centuries  a  con- 
dition of  things  under  which  a  woman  could  be  com- 
pelled by  purely  economic  considerations  to  join  the 
ranks  of  harlotry  is  an  admission  which  no  self- 
respecting  man  or  woman  can  make  without  a  burning 
sense  of  shame.  State  employment  under  the  same 
gentle  inducements  as  was  suggested  for  the  pauper 
seems  to  furnish  a  simple  solution  of  the  problem;  but 
it  must  be  noted  that  while  State  employment  would 
in  an  individualist  community  be  stamped  as  ignominy 
because  it  took  the  shape  of  an  asylum.  State  employ- 
ment need  never  in  a  collectivist  community  bear  this 
stamp,  except  where  the  cell  has  actually  to  be  used. 
In  order  to  make  this  distinction  clear,  the  municipality 
would,  before  it  owned  farms  of  its  own,  have  to  create 
two  kinds  of  colonies,  the  Voluntary  and  the  Involun- 
tary, to  which  those  who  committed  themselves  and 
those  who  were  committed  would  respectively  be  con- 
fined. So  long  as  these  so-called  voluntary  colonies 
bore  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  employment  for  the 
purpose  of  furnishing  relief,  tbey  would  be   shunned, 


PRACTICAL  WORKIXG   OF   COLLECTIVISM     401 

and  would  in  the  minds  of  the  ignorant  be  vaguely  asso- 
ciated with  prisons  and  imprisonment.  But  as  soon  as 
the  municipality  owned  farms  of  its  own  and  opened 
public  stores,  then  all  outward  and  visible  signs  of  pau- 
perism would  disappear;  all  unemployed  persons  will- 
ing to  work  would  be  taken  into  the  employment  of  the 
State,  and  only  those  unwilling  to  work  would  be 
consigned  to  the  compulsory  colony,  where  no  great 
severity,  to  judge  from  existing  experience,  need  be 
applied,  but  the  indignity  attending  which  most  would 
wish  to  avoid.  Now  the  day  when  the  State  shall  have 
become  a  sufficiently  large  owner  of  land  and  a  suffi,cie7itly 
extensive  employer  of  lahour  to  he  able  to  furnish  eiiiploy- 
ment  ivithout  shame  for  the  pauper  who  has  been  restored 
by  sound  food  and  regular  hours  of  labour  to  a  normal 
condition  of  body  and  7nind,  for  the  crhninal  who  has 
graduated  from  the  criminal  and  compulsory  pauper 
colony  and  become  thereby  fitted  for  social  life^  for  the 
woman  who  has  been  betrayed^  and  for  the  widow  who  has 
to  support  a  child,  a  sufficient  progress  will  have  been  made 
to  justify  the  effort,  —  nay,  even  the  danger  of  the  experi- 
ment,— for  then,  for  the  first  time,  will  a  solution  have  been 
proposed  of  the  economic  problem  presented  by  prostitution, 
pauperism,  and  for  the  most  part  also  by  crime. 


(f)    Advance  from  Partial  Collectivism  to 
Collectivism,  Proper 

So  long  as  the  State  is  not  substantially  the  only 
owner  of  the  sources  of  production,  ^  the  proposed  collec- 
tivist  scheme  will  not  be  realised ;  for  so  long  services 
will  be  remunerated  upon  the  wage  plan,  and  there  will 

1  Production  of  necessaries  and  ordinary  comforts,  but  not  necessarily 
of  superfluities,  which  may  indefinitely  be  left  to  private  enterprise. 

26 


402  COLLECTIVISM 

consequently  be  a  perpetual  struggle  for  the  more  highly 
remunerated  otHces,  a  struggle  which  will  have  an  econ- 
omical as  well  as  a  political  stimulus.  It  is  quite  possi- 
ble that  humanity  will  never  get  beyond  the  partial 
collectivism  above  described,  and  if  it  did  not,  an 
advantage  would  already  have  been  secured  of  priceless 
importance.  But  there  is  no  reason  why  humanity 
should  not,  when  once  this  advanced  stage  of  partial 
collectivism  were  attained,  ultimately  improve  suffi- 
ciently to  enter  the  next  phase  and  emerge  into  a  condi- 
tion which,  though  not  ideal  collectivism,  may,  perhaps, 
conveniently  be  called  Collectivism  Proper. 

It  is  obvious  that  as  the  State  slowly  increased  its 
ownership  of  the  sources  of  production  it  would  keep 
track  of  the  cost  of  production,  as  regards  every  neces- 
sary of  life,  and  it  would  be  in  a  position,  therefore,  to 
state  the  exchange  value  of  these  commodities  in  terms 
of  what  may  be  called  dividend  coupons  upon  the  col- 
lectivist  principle,  —  that  is  to  say,  upon  the  principle 
that  all  who  contributed  to  production  were  to  share 
equally  therein,  or  as  nearly  equally  as  conditions  might 
permit.  It  has  been  objected  that  this  calculation  is 
difficult,  if  not  impossible.  It  may  be  well,  therefore, 
briefly  to  consider  how  the  exchange  value  of  commodi- 
ties can  be  expressed  in  dividend  coupons. 


Of)   Determination  of  Exchange   Value  of  Commodities^ 
Expressed  in  Dividend  Coupons 

It  has  been  already  explained  that  under  a  collectivist 
regime  there  will  be  two  kinds  of  scrip:  dividend  cou- 
pons and  voluntary  labour  cheques.^     The  former  will 

^  It  must  be  carefully  remembered  that  the  State  order  recommended 
during  the  initial  steps  towards  collectivism  is  totally  different  from  the 


PRACTICAL   WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     403 

be  issued  to  represent  that  part  of  the  nation's  income 
to  which  the  holder  is  entitled  by  virtue  of  the  compul- 
sory labour  he  does  with  a  view  to  the  production  and 
distribution  of  necessaries ;  the  second  will  be  issued  to 
represent  so  much  time  voluntarily  expended  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  a  particular  advantage.  These  two 
kinds  of  scrip  differ  essentially  in  kind,  and  their  ex- 
change values  represent  different  things.  The  essential 
feature  of  the  dividend  coupon  is  that  it  represents  a 
fraction  of  the  national  income.  It  is  proposed  to  cal- 
culate it  as  follows :  — 

At  a  time  when  the  population  of  the  United  States 
was  fifty  millions,  Mulhall  estimated  that  the  amount  of 
grain  annually  produced  in  the  United  States  was 
2,400,000,000  bushels.  Of  this,  ten  per  cent  must  be 
deducted  for  seed,  and  a  further  deduction  of  about  fifty 
per  cent  must  be  made  for  the  feeding  of  stock.  This 
would  leave  about  1,000,000,000  bushels  available  for  hu- 
man food.  This  figure  divided  by  50,000,000  would  en- 
title every  inhabitant,  upon  an  equal  division,  to  twenty 
bushels  of  grain  per  annum.  This  amount  of  grain, 
therefore,  would  represent  the  share  of  every  member  of 
a  collectivist  community  in  the  grain  production  of  the 
State.  If,  at  the  time  of  the  conversion  of  exchange 
medium  from  currency  to  dividend  coupons,  $1.00,  or  a 
hundred  cents,  were  the  cash  value  of  a  bushel  of  grain, 
one  hundred  units  might  conveniently  be  taken  as  the 
commercial  expression  in  dividend  coupons  of  a  bushel 
of  grain;  and  every  inhabitant  would  therefore  be 
entitled  to  20  X  100  or  2000  units  of  value  arising  out 
of  his  right  to  an  equal  share  in  State  production  of 
grain. 

dividend  coupon  recommended  in  a  collectivist  State.  In  the  former 
case  it  is  an  order  to  purchase  so  much  goods  expressed  in  dollars,  and  is 
transferable.  In  the  second  it  represents  a  fractional  part  of  national  in- 
come, is  expressed  in  units,  and  is  not  transferable. 


404  COLLECTIVISM 

The  same  kind  of  calculation  could  be  applied  to  meat; 
the  number  of  pounds  of  meat  ^  to  which  each  inhabitant 
was  entitled  could  be  arrived  at  as  in  the  case  of  grain. 
If  meat  at  the  time  of  conversion  was  worth  twenty 
cents  a  pound,  the  number  of  pounds  of  meat  to  which 
every  inhabitant  was  entitled  would  be  multiplied  by 
twenty  units,  and  this  figure,  representing  the  share  of 
every  inhabitant  arising  out  of  meat  production,  would 
be  added  to  the  2000  units  representing  his  right  to  a 
share  in  the  State  production  of  grain. 

This  process  would  be  applied  to  all  the  commodities 
produced  by  the  State  through  the  medium  of  compul- 
sory labour,  and  thus  the  total  share  of  each  inhabitant 
in  the  total  income  of  the  State  would  be  determined  in 
dividend  units  or  coupons.  Under  this  plan  every 
inhabitant  would  be  free  to  spend  his  dividend  coupons 
as  he  chose ;  one  preferring  much  meat  and  little  bread ; 
another  much  bread  and  little  meat;  and  a  family  adjust- 
ing their  provisions  to  their  respective  tastes  in  exactly 
the  same  way  as  we  now  do  through  the  exchange 
medium  of  currency. 

These  dividend  coupons  would  be  subject  to  readjust- 
ment every  year  according  to  the  abundance  of  the  crops 
and  of  the  commodities  manufactured  respectively ;  and 
it  would  be  subject  to  a  further  occasional  adjustment, 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  infants  do  not  eat,  and  that  up 
to  a  certain  age  it  may  or  may  not  be  expedient  to  throw 
the  support  of  children  upon  the  parents. ^  This  adjust- 
ment would  be  effected  by  deducting  from  the  popula- 
tion the  number  of  infants  that  do  not  eat  solid  food, 

1  Miilliall  (Industries  and  Wealth  of  Nations,  1896,  p.  5)  explains  just 
what  he  means  by,  and  how  he  arrives  at,  the  annual  production  of  pounds 
of  meat. 

2  See  Chap.  lY.,  Objections  to  Collectivism,  Sec.  1:  Tliat  it  would 
promote  over-population. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     405 

and   the   number  of  those  children  whose  support  the 
State  deems  it  wise  to  impose  upon  the  parents. 

Now  what  can  be  done  for  meat  and  grain  can  be  done 
for  everything  which  the  State  produces,  superfluities 
as  well  as  necessaries,  pianos,  bicycles,  yachts,  as  well 
as  coal,  ice,  and  milk.  There  will,  however,  in  the 
collectivist  plan  proposed,  be,  as  already  stated,  two 
different  systems  applied  to  the  production  of  necessa- 
ries and  the  production  of  superfluities  that  contribute 
to  refinement,  amusement,  and  pleasure.  The  labour 
necessary  to  produce  the  one  will  be  exacted;  that 
necessary  to  produce  the  other  will  be  voluntary.  Thus, 
if  a  man  desires  a  bicycle  or  a  woman  desires  an  extra 
gown,  they  will  be  informed  that  the  bicycle  or  gown 
costs  a  certain  number  of  hours  of  labour  or  a  given 
quantity  of  piece  work ;  and  they  will  have  to  do  these 
hours  of  labour,  or  the  given  quantity  of  piece  work, 
either  at  the  production  of  necessaries  or  at  that  of  super- 
fluities, according  as  the  exigencies  of  production  may 
require. 

The  element  in  this  system  most  repugnant  to  indi- 
vidualists is  the  element  of  coercion ;  "  it  is  odious, "  says 
he,  "  to  have  to  work  as  directed  by  the  State,  instead  of 
working  at  the  employment  chosen  by  one's  self." 


(Ji)    Choice  of  Occupation 

The  question  how  far  a  man  to-day  chooses  his  own 
occupation  has  already  been  discussed.  Here  no  more 
need  be  said  than  to  recall  the  undoubted  fact  that  wage- 
earners  cannot  be  said  to  choose  their  occupation  at  all ; 
and  professional  men  for  the  most  part  select  the  occu- 
pation to  which  they  are  most  fitted  when  it  is  not 
already  selected  for  them  by  the  profession  of  the  father. 
Nature,  therefore,  determines  for  these  last  the  choice, 


406  COLLECTIVISM 

rather  than  the  individual.  Let  us  now  consider  how 
this  choice  of  occupation  would  be  determined,  first,  in 
a  partial  collectivism,  and  next  in  a  collectivism  proper. 
In  a  partial  collectivism  the  conditions  as  regards 
choice  of  occupation  would  be  similar  to  those  which 
prevail  to-day,  because  the  individual  could  always 
choose  between  the  occupation  offered  him  by  the  State 
and  the  occupation  he  could  make  for  himself  outside 
of  the  State.  Nevertheless,  the  large  scope  of  State 
employment  would  enable  the  State  to  offer  good  terms, 
and  thus  render  it  a  formidable  rival  to  individual 
employers.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  children 
of  parents  employed  by  the  State  would  regularly  become 
State  employes,  and  that  they  would  only  exceptionally 
abandon  State  employment.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  State,  through  the  machinery  of  State  schools,  would 
apply  its  method  of  selection  early,  —  that  is  to  say,  as 
soon  as  children  developed  special  faculties  in  special 
directions.  For  example,  as  soon  as  a  child  developed 
a  faculty  for  engineering,  he  would  be  given  an  educa- 
tion specifically  adapted  to  develop  this  faculty;  and 
the  same  would  be  true  of  medicine,  science,  mechanics, 
etc.  In  this  manner  the  ablest  children  would  become 
separated  out  from  the  less  able.  In  view,  however,  of 
the  fact  that  the  greatest  ability  is  often  the  slowest  to 
develop,  all  children  would  be  given  opportunities  for 
education  to  a  mature  age,  a  careful  difference  being 
made  between  that  part  of  the  education  that  was  com- 
pulsory and  that  which  was  voluntary.  It  might  hap- 
pen, for  example,  that,  owing  to  slow  development  or 
administrative  error,  a  youth  might  be  put  into  the  group 
of  manual  labourers  although  he  possessed  a  genius  for 
some  higher  occupation.  The  State  would  be  very 
unwisely  administered  if  it  did  not  provide  for  such  a 
case.     And  the  obvious  method  of  doing  so  would  be 


PRACTICAL  WORKIXG  OF  COLLECTIVISM     407 

for  the  State  to  offer  opportunities  for  study  to  all 
citizens,  up  to  any  age,  during  the  hours  of  leisure  which 
collective  production  would  allow.  But  genius  often 
works  out  its  own  method  of  education,  and  it  is  not  at 
all  certain  that  it  would  need  State  aid  for  its  develop- 
ment and  expression.  Genius  has  more  to  fear  from 
crushing  hours  of  labour  than  from  lack  of  education. 
Let  every  man  in  the  State  have  half  the  day  in  which 
to  work  out  his  individual  faculties,  and  there  is  little 
room  for  fear  that  genius  will  fail  to  find  its  legitimate 
expression  in  a  collectivist  State. 

The  ablest  children  being  early  sorted  out  as  above 
described,  the  rest  would  be  classified  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  State  production. 

There  would  be  a  group  of  artisans,  of  agriculturists, 
of  clerks,  of  manual  labourers ;  and  out  of  these  classes 
it  would  be  possible  for  any  individual  at  any  time  to 
graduate  into  another  by  showing  fitness  for  a  higher 
occupation. 

This  method  would  proceed  closely  along  the  lines  of 
nature ;  it  would  seek  to  discover  the  natural  adaptabil- 
ities of  each,  and  apply  each  to  the  work  which  each  was 
best  fitted  to  perform. 

But  within  every  class  there  would  be  a  large  oppor- 
tunity for  choice.  Among  the  agriculturists,  for  exam- 
ple, every  member  could  state  his  preference  whether 
for  farming  on  a  large  scale  or  on  a  small;  for  the 
growth  of  grain,  or  vegetables,  or  fruits.  A  youth  born 
upon  a  farm  would  have  a  prior  lien  for  work  on  that 
farm  if  he  desired  it;  but,  subject  to  the  considerations 
arising  from  the  advisableness  of  keeping  a  family  to- 
gether, every  individual  could  exercise  a  choice.  It 
would,  of  course,  often  occur  that  there  would  be  more 
applications  for  a  particular  employment  than  there  were 
places  to  fill.     In  such  case  the  issue  would  have  to  be 


408  COLLECTIVISM 

decided  by  lot.  And  those  who  drew  a  bad  lot  would 
not  have  half  as  much  reason  for  discontent  as  the  youth 
who  draws  a  bad  number  for  military  service  to-day  in 
France  or  Germany. 

This  principle  would  be  applied  in  every  occupation. 
The  lirst  consideration  would  always  be  that  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family  should  be  given  employment  in  the 
same  i)lace,  —  that  is  to  say,  at  the  common  home ;  the 
next  consideration  would  then  be  the  choice  of  the  indi- 
vidual within  the  group  to  which  he  was  assigned;  and 
it  would  only  be  when  the  necessities  of  State  produc- 
tion made  the  employment  selected  impossible  that  indi- 
vidual choice  would  have  to  be  disregarded. 

Now,  in  this  method  is  there  really  much  to  distin- 
guish it,  so  far  as  freedom  of  choice  is  concerned,  from 
that  prevailing  to-day  ?  Would  not  the  man  who  wanted 
to  become  a  doctor  become  one  ?  —  the  man  who  wanted 
to  become  an  engineer  become  an  engineer?  —  the  man 
who  wanted  to  become  a  farmer  become  a  farmer  ?  And 
if  one  engineer  wanted  to  abandon  engineering  and  raise 
sheep,  would  he  not  have  abundant  leisure  to  qualify 
himself  for  sheep-raising,  and  could  he  not,  therefore, 
change  his  occupation  as  readily  under  a  coUectivist 
State  as  under  present  conditions? 

And  those  who  were  assigned  to  manual  labour,  would 
their  lot  be  a  very  hard  one?  They  would  be  so 
assigned  because  they  were  physically  fit  for  it.  Five 
hours  of  manual  labour  is  not  an  irksome  task  for  a  man 
easily  able  to  perform  such  labour  for  ten.  And  the 
rest  of  his  day  he  could  devote  to  whatever  most  inter- 
ested him ;  the  rest  of  the  day  he  would  enjoy  the  truest 
libert}^  the  only  liberty  worthy  of  the  name. 

Under  partial  collectivism  the  question  of  employ- 
ment would  be  complicated  by  the  question  of  wages. 
But  if  collectivism  proper  were  introduced  as  heretofore 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     409 

suggested,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  wage-earner  supported 
by  men  of  wealth  and  conscience,  the  wage  question 
would  slowly  become  eliminated ;  there  would  be  a  slow 
increase  in  the  wage  paid  to  the  manual  labourer  with- 
out a  corresponding  diminution  in  that  paid  to  the  man- 
agers ;  the  increase  in  the  wage  to  the  manual  labourer 
resulting  from  the  slow  increase  of  economy  under  a 
system  which  replaced  competition  by  co-operation.  In- 
dividualists contend  that  individualism  means  levelling 
up,  and  collectivism  levelling  down.  Our  crowded 
gaols,  penitentiaries,  and  almshouses  bear  witness  how 
untrue  it  is  that  individualism  levels  up.  The  fore- 
going explanation  how  wages  would  rise  under  collective 
production  bears  witness  how  little  collectivism  levels 
down. 

It  may  be  urged  that  this  system  of  levelling  up  would 
have  for  effect  to  drive  all  the  most  successful  managers 
into  the  ranks  of  the  competing  individualists,  and 
this  is  undoubtedly  true ;  the  struggle  between  collec- 
tivism and  individualism  would  be  long  and  bitter. 
And  it  is  well  that  it  should  be  so ;  for  until  the  people 
were  sufficiently  developed  morally  and  intellectually 
to  make  the  collectivist  plan  prevail  over  the  individu- 
alist, the  adoption  of  collectivism  would  lead  to  failure 
and  calamity. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that,  the  more  the 
State  acquired,  the  less  field  would  there  be  for  indi- 
vidualist enterprise.  If  the  State  expropriated  a  mine 
as  soon  as  it  began  to  pay,  no  great  individualist  wealth 
could  be  made  of  it.  The  fact  that  the  State  paid  fairly 
for  such  a  mine  would  encourage  individuals  to  explore 
and  develop  mines,  but  the  fact  that  the  State  would 
eventually  purchase  them  would  prevent  any  great  ac- 
cumulation of  wealth  in  individual  hands.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  that  individualism  would  find  little  field  for 


410  COLLECTIVISM 

action  outside  of  such  occupations  as  required  great 
skill,  taste,  or  talent.  The  manufacture  of  pianos 
might  long  remain  in  individual  hands,  as  might  that 
of  articles  of  dress  and  personal  adornment;  actors  and 
opera  singers  would  doubtless  long  find  higher  remun- 
eration outside  of  the  State  than  within  it.  But  it  seems 
as  though  the  field  of  operation  for  individual  effort 
outside  the  State  would  eventually  be  confined  to  a 
comparatively  few  occupations ;  in  these  occupations  in- 
dividual enterprise  would  operate  through  the  voluntary 
labour  system. 

Qi)    Voluntary  Labour  Cheques 

Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that  the  manufacture  of 
pianos  had  been  organised  into  a  trust  and  been  pur- 
chased by  the  State,  and  that,  owing  to  the  incapacity 
of  State  management,  pianos  ceased  to  be  manufactured 
up  to  old  standards.  There  would  be  nothing  to  pre- 
vent those  having  special  genius  for  such  manufacture 
combining  during  their  leisure  hours  to  manufacture 
pianos  of  a  better  grade.  And  this  need  not  involve 
actual  co-operation  in  the  manufacture  of  every  per- 
son interested  in  good  pianos;  for  voluntary  labour 
cheques  would,  though  limited  in  time,  like  dividend 
coupons,  differ  from  dividend  couj)ons  in  that  they 
would  be  transferable.  Let  us  see  how  this  principle 
would  work.  Let  us  suppose  A  to  have  such  gifts  as 
Steinway  had,  and  to  desire  to  manufacture  pianos  of 
the  greatest  perfection.  He  would  raise  subscriptions 
from  all  interested  in  the  work  exactly  as  Steinway 
doubtless  did  to  secure  the  capital  for  his  enterjirise; 
only  the  subscriptions  would  not  be  in  money,  but  in 
voluntary  labour  promises.  Assuming  that  A  induced 
a  hundred  persons  to  promise  an  extra  hour  of  labour  a 


PRACTICAL   WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     411 

day,  or  its  equivalent  in  piece  work,  for  six  months,  in 
return  for  which  each  was  to  have  a  piano  of  superior 
make,  A  would  go  to  the  Labour  Bureau  and  tender 
these  promises  of  voluntary  labour,  in  exchange  for 
which  he  would  secure  from  the  Labour  Bureau  skilled 
labour  from  the  State  Piano  Factory  to  do  the  work 
under  his  supervision,  either  from  the  ranks  of  compul- 
sory or  from  those  of  voluntary  labour.  In  other  words, 
the  subscriber  would  labour  in  accordance  with  his 
labour  promise,  and  thus  earn  voluntary  labour  cheques, 
which  he  would  transfer  to  A,  and  with  these  A  would 
secure  skilled  labour,  transferring  these  voluntary  labour 
cheques  either  to  the  State  for  compulsory  skilled 
labour,  or  to  individuals  for  voluntary  skilled  labour. 

Now,  what  could  be  done  for  pianos  could  be  done  for 
dress,  for  country  houses,  yachts,  automobiles,  and  for 
all  the  other  things  that  enter  into  the  enjoyment  of  life.^ 

There  is  no  greater  error  than  to  suppose  that  collec- 
tivism involves  levelling  down,  or  the  reduction  of  free 
men  to  the  condition  of  State  slaves.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  system  of  collective  production,  which  diminishes 
the  time  that  must  be  given  to  the  work  of  production 
and  distribution  of  necessaries  to  a  minimum,  and  thus 
leaves  to  every  man  the  maximum  of  time  and  liberty 
for  the  satisfaction  of  his  individual  tastes  and  the 
development  of  his  industrial  abilities. 

But  if  the  State  bureau  refused  the  application  of  A 
for  labour  ? 

There  is  obviously  ample  room  for  error  and  for  spite 
in  the  collectivist  State,  and  individualists  dwell  much 
on  the  helplessness  of  the  individual  in  such  case.  There 
does  not  seem,  however,  room  for  apprehension  on  this 
score.     The   task  of  A,  for  example,  might  be  made 

1  The  subject  of  Voluntary  Labour  Cheques  is  further  treated,  post,  416, 
419. 


412  COLLECTIVISM 

more  difficult  by  such  refusal,  but  it  would  not  for  that 
reason  become  impossible.  On  the  contrary,  he  could 
still  find  out  for  himself,  without  State  aid,  all  the  per- 
sons willing  to  give  voluntary  labour  for  the  compensa- 
tion A  could  offer  them.  Let  us  consider  a  moment 
what  is  the  character  of  this  compensation,  and,  in  con- 
nection with  this  subject,  what  are  the  probable  limits  of 
State  and  individual  enterprise. 

(j)   Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  one  of  the  funda- 
mental evils  of  the  competitive  system  is  its  wasteful- 
ness ;  but  another  evil  as  great  is  the  exploitation  of  one 
man  by  another  to  which  it  gives  rise.  The  facility 
which  is  given  by  it  to  the  money-making  man  for 
accumulating  wealth  at  the  expense  of  others, ^  so  that 
a  few  are  very  rich  and  the  many  are  very  poor,  is  too 
obvious  to  need  exposition.  Now  this  condition  of 
things  renders  easy  the  exploitation  of  the  poor  by  the 
rich ;  for  the  poor  have  to  work  in  order  to  earn  bread ; 
they  have  no  choice.  They  are  kept  by  the  fear  of 
hunger  from  demanding  a  just  comiDensation.^  To 
countenance  this  system  on  the  plea  of  liberty  of  con- 
tract is  rank  hypocrisy.  The  isolated  workingman  is 
only  able  to  demand  compensation  when  he  is  in  a  posi- 
tion to  refuse  his  labour;  at  all  other  times  he  has  to 
take  what  is  offered  to  him. 

1  Individualist  economists  insist  that  wealth  is  not  made  by  one  man 
at  the  expense  of  others,  but  to  their  benefit.  Undoubtedly  the  wealth  of 
one  man  often  and  generally  benefits  others  ;  but  the  net  actual,  visible  re- 
sult of  the  competitive  system  is  that  a  few  are  undeservedly  favoured  ;  the 
majority  earn  a  bad  living ;  and  a  fifth  are  in  misery.  This  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  words  "  at  the  expense  of  others." 

2  Traile  unions  do  much  to  diminish  this  helplessness,  but  it  has  been 
shown  that  they  can  only  do  this  at  periods  of  expanding  trade  and  high 
prices.     When  trade  contracts  or  prices  go  down  they  are  helpless. 


PKACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     413 

Now  this  helplessness  of  the  poor  is  clue  to  the  fact 
that  the  wealthy  control  the  employment  which  the  poor 
need  in  order  to  live ;  and  it  is  this  helplessness  which  col- 
lectivism is  mainly  concerned  in  preventing.  Moreover, 
it  is  the  function  of  collectivism  to  prevent  this,  not  by 
the  tender  of  alms,  which  is  humiliating  and  unjust,  but 
by  the  furnishing  of  bread  for  labour  to  all  in  the  com- 
munity under  similar  conditions,  so  that  all  contribute 
and  all  receive  an  equal  share  of  the  common  enterprise. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  might  be  wise  for  the  State 
to  undertake  nothing  more  than  the  management  of 
natural  monopolies  and  the  production  and  distribution 
of  necessaries^  leaving  the  production  and  distribution  of 
comforts  and  luxuries  entirely  to  private  enterprise. 
Indeed,  the  scope  of  State  enterprise  beyond  that  of 
monopolies  and  necessaries  would  remain  a  matter  of 
policy  as  to  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  establish 
any  rigid  rules.  If  the  State  were  admirably  adminis- 
tered, doubtless  the  economy  and  convenience  of  State 
management  would  tend  to  increase  its  scope,  whereas 
if  State  management  were  not  good,  private  enterprise 
would  tend  to  take  everything  but  the  necessary  func- 
tions of  the  State  out  of  its  hands.  It  will  be  seen, 
therefore,  that  collectivism  by  no  means  involves  a  total 
subordination  of  individual  to  State  enterprise,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  permits  of  every  possible  degree  of  both, 
provided  only  the  State  keeps  control  of  monopolies  and 
of  the  production  and  distribution  of  necessaries,  thereby 
making  the  exploitation  of  one  man  by  another  impos- 
sible by  providing  the  necessaries  of  life  to  all. 

As,  however,  it  may  not  seem  easy  to  understand  how 
individual  enterprise  could  take  any  given  industry  out 
of  the  hands  of  a  collectivist  State,  let  us  consider  a 
little  more  closely  how  A  would  set  about  the  task 
referred  to. 


414  COLLECTIVISM 

If  State-made  pianos  were  badly  manufactured,  there 
would  doubtless  be  many  persons  desirous  of  possessing 
pianos  of  a  better  make.  Let  us  assume  that  two  hun- 
dred families  averaging  five  members  each  were  found 
desirous  of  owning  good  pianos;  they  would  probably 
most  of  them  be  quite  unfamiliar  with  the  manufacture 
of  pianos;  they  could  not,  therefore,  themselves  con- 
tribute usefully  thereto.  A  would,  therefore,  have  to 
find  a  sufficient  number  of  skilled  men  who  would  be 
willing  to  devote  extra  time  to  the  manufacture  of 
pianos,  according  to  A's  method,  in  return  for  certain 
advantages  which  A  would  have  to  secure  to  them. 
These  advantages  would  take  the  shape  of  voluntary 
labour  cheques  issued,  not  through  the  State,  but  by  A. 
Were  pianos  the  only  things  manufactured  by  private 
enterprise,  the  rewarding  of  labour  by  voluntary  cheques 
would  be  a  matter  of  some  difficulty,  but  if  many  things 
were  manufactured  outside  of  the  State  there  would 
arise  by  the  side  of  State  cheques  a  system  of  private 
cheques  which  would  facilitate  the  task  of  A.  In  other 
words,  there  would  grow  up  by  private  enterprise  private 
labour  bureaus  or  banks,  at  which  all  persons  desiring 
things  not  procurable  from  the  State  would  apply,  ten- 
dering therefor  products  of  voluntary  labour  or  promises 
of  voluntary  labour  in  exchange  therefor.  The  artist 
who  desired  an  automobile  would  tender  the  work  of 
his  art,  and  according  to  his  skill  would  receive  the 
automobile  in  exchange  for  more  or  for  less  hours  of 
labour.^  The  mechanic  who  wanted  a  cow  would  ten- 
der his  labour,  and  according  to  his  skill  would  receive 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  piece-work  system  would  be  largely 
used  in  a  collectivist  State,  and  that  an  artist,  therefore,  would  probably 
oirer  his  completed  work,  instead  of  so  many  hours  of  labour,  in  exchange 
for  voluntary  labour  cheipies,  and  use  the  voluntary  labour  che(|ues  so 
obtained  to  purchase  his  automobile. 


PRACTICAL   WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     415 

the  cow  in  exchange  for  more  or  for  less  piece  work  or 
hours  of  labour.  Thus,  by  the  side  of  the  State  system 
of  dividend  coupons  and  labour  cheques,  would  grow 
up  a  private  system  of  labour  cheques,  more  or  less  im- 
portant than  the  State,  according  as  the  scope  of  the 
State  were  small  or  large.  And  the  voluntary  system, 
whether  public  or  private,  would  involve  two  kinds 
of  scrip,  —  promises  of  labour  and  voluntary  labour 
cheques.  Individuals  would  tender  promises,  and 
thereby  induce  others  to  offer  voluntary  labour.  Both 
sets  would  then  set  to  work  in  their  respective  fields, 
redeem  their  promises,  and  receive  voluntary  labour 
cheques  in  exchange  therefor,  which  each  could  use  in 
exchange  for  the  product  of  the  work  of  others.  To 
make  this  subject  clear:  A  obtains  from  BCD  prom- 
ises to  labour  in  return  for  a  piano.  With  these  he 
secures  the  voluntary  services  of  P  Q  R,  skilled  work- 
men in  the  piano  trade.  BCD  labour  in  their  respec- 
tive fields  and  become  entitled  to  voluntary  labour 
cheques  which  entitle  them  each  to  a  piano.  P  Q  R 
labour  at  the  manufacture  of  pianos  and  receive  vol- 
untary labour  cheques  therefor.  The  labour  cheques 
which  P  Q  R  earn,  they  exchange  for  any  of  the  arti- 
cles manufactured  through  the  labour  of  B  C  D  and 
others. 

Side  by  side,  therefore,  with  State  production  would 
arise  a  system  of  production  by  private  enterprise,  and 
thus  collectivism  would  escape  from  the  rigidity  and 
uniformity  which  individualists  insist  are  indispensable 
to  it,  and  which  all  would,  if  indeed  indispensable  to  it, 
greatly  deplore.  For  man  needs  variety  and  freedom, 
and  any  system  of  government  that  would  eliminate 
these  must  occasion  either  degeneration  or  discontent. 
Too  much  emphasis,  therefore,  cannot  be  put  upon  the 
unlimited  scope  permissible  to  private  enterprise,  once 


416  COLLECTIVISM 

only  two  things  are  provided  for  by  the  State,  —  the  ne- 
cessaries of  life,  and  economy  in  the  production  of  them. 
These  two  are  indispensable  attributes  of  a  wisely  con- 
stituted State,  because,  if  the  necessaries  of  life  are  not 
furnished  to  every  member  of  the  community,  a  large 
part  of  the  community  —  under  our  present  system  the 
larger  part  —  is  subjected  to  exploitation  by  the  minor- 
ity on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  is  delivered 
over  to  pauperism,  prostitution,  and  crime. 

If  the  necessaries  of  life  are  not  furnished  with  the 
greatest  economy  of  production  and  distribution,  so 
much  of  the  time  of  the  community  is  spent,  as  under 
our  present  system,  in  the  drudgery  of  production 
and  distribution,  that  no  time  is  left  for  individual 
enterprise,  for  individual  improvement,  for  the  exer- 
cise of  individual  liberty,  or  the  pursuit  of  individual 
happiness. 

Collectivism  is  thus  shown  to  contribute,  as  our  defi- 
nition of  justice  demands,  to  the  care  of  the  individual 
as  well  as  to  that  of  the  race,  and,  indeed,  properly 
limited,  to  furnish  the  only  full  scope  to  individual 
initiative,  so  often  stifled,  under  our  existing  competitive 
system,  by  the  crushing  necessity  of  earning  our  daily 
bread. 

(Z;)  Dividend  Coupons,  Labour  Cheques,  and  Currency 

The  question  naturally  arises.  Why,  under  the  con- 
templated collectivism,  is  it  proposed  to  substitute  divi- 
dend coupons  and  labour  cheques  for  coin  as  a  medium 
of  exchange  ?  No  categorical  answer  will  be  attempted 
to  this  question,  because  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  col- 
lectivism should  attain  the  highest  development  consist- 
ent with  human  imperfections,  and  coin  be  maintained  as 
a  medium  of  exchange  outside  of  the  public  stores.     Coin 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     417 

must  be  eliminated  from  the  public  stores  because,  as 
has  been  already  explained,  State  production  and  distri- 
bution being  conducted  on  the  plan  of  equal  division, 
every  member  of  the  community  would  be  entitled  to  his 
share  of  State  income,  and  this  share  could  be  most 
conveniently  expressed  and  utilised  by  the  dividend 
coupon  already  described.  But  it  might  very  well 
happen  that  the  development  of  collectivism  would 
never  proceed  beyond  the  purchase  of  monopolies  and  of 
sufficient  land  to  assure  a  sufficient  share  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life  to  all  applying  to  the  State  for  employment. 
This  would  constitute  the  condition  already  described 
as  Partial  Collectivism.  The  existing  competitive 
system  for  the  production  of  luxuries  might  be  main- 
tained, with  its  currency  and  banking  system,  its  profits 
and  accumulated  advantages  to  those  possessing  the 
special  talents  of  the  money-maker.  There  are,  how- 
ever, obvious  objections  to  such  a  system.  In  the  first 
place,  it  would  fall  far  short  of  the  moral  standards  we 
profess;  in  the  second  place,  the  competitive  system, 
with  its  attendant  joint-stock  companies  and  coin  cur- 
rency, would  exert  a  dangerous  influence  on  those 
charged  with  the  government  and  administration  of  the 
collectivist  State.  It  does  not  seem  conceivable  that 
those  in  control  of  so  powerful  a  machinery  as  that  of  a 
collectivist  State  could  resist  the  corrupting  power  of 
wealthy  magnates  able  by  accumulation  of  wealth  to 
offer  enormous  rewards  for  political  favours.  And  these 
considerations  permit  of  our  understanding  clearly  the 
difference  between  the  labour  cheque  and  coin  as  me- 
diums of  exchange.  Coin  is  capable  of  unlimited  accu- 
mulation ;  the  labour  cheque  is  capable  of  accumulation 
within  narrow  limits  only. 

Let  us  consider   how  this   principle  would  work   in 
the  example  already  furnished  by  our  piano-maker  A. 

27 


418  COLLECTIVISM 

Were  A  to  raise  subscriptions  in  coin  and  pay  workmen 
in  coin,  he  would  be  enabled,  by  a  margin  of  profit  on 
every  hour  of  labour  furnished,  to  put  aside  an  amount 
of  coin  that  would  represent  value,  not  only  during  his 
own  life,  but  in  all  time.  Were  he,  on  the  contrarj^  to 
receive  subscriptions  and  pay  workmen  in  labour  cheques 
that  were  of  value  only  for  a  limited  time,  he  would 
have  no  interest  in  endeavouring  to  make  a  margin  of 
profit  out  of  his  workmen ;  for  by  the  time  the  margin 
of  profit  was  realised  the  labour  cheque  would  have 
ceased  to  have  value.  Let  us  take  an  example:  two 
hundred  families  of  five  members  each  want  pianos; 
each  piano  requires  two  hundred  hours  expended  on  it. 
Each  family  furnishes  promises  of  two  hundred  hours 
of  labour,  or  their  equivalent  in  piece  work,  —  that  is  to 
say,  each  person  furnishes  promises  of  forty  hours  of 
labour,  or  their  equivalent  in  piece  work ;  these  promises 
are  good  for  one  year  only.i  They  are  therefore  inca- 
pable of  accumulation;  profit  thereon  is  incapable  of 
accumulation.  A,  or  rather  the  private  labour  bureaus 
or  bank  through  which  A  works,  could,  of  course,  con- 
vert the  promises  of  labour  into  commodities ;  and  these 
commodities  could  be  converted  once  more  into  new 
labour  promises.  But  unless  these  new  labour  promises 
were  expeditiously  used,  they  would  become  unavailable 
by  lapse  of  time.  There  is  therefore  a  material  diffi- 
culty about  accumulating  wealth  upon  the  labour  cheque 
plan  which  is  conspicuously  absent  from  the  coin 
system.     The  fact  that  labour  cheques  are  limited  in 

^  The  term  of  one  year  is  purely  arbitrary  ;  it  miglit  be  one  month  or  it 
might  be  two  years;  if  ingenuity  succeeded  in  finding  a  method  for  accu- 
mulating and  exchanging  cheques  that  were  due  for  cheques  that  liad  still 
their  time  to  run,  doubtless  the  term  of  the  cheque  would  be  reduced  to 
render  the  process  cUfficult ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  no  such  effort  were  made, 
and  it  were  found  useful  to  favour  the  negotiability  of  labour  cheques, 
their  term  would  be  extended. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING   OF   COLLECTIVISM     419 

time  would  involve  a  difficult  and  constant  readjust- 
ment that  would  stand  much  in  the  way  of  extensive 
accumulation.  Doubtless  human  ingenuity  would, 
under  the  mercenary  stimulus,  find  a  way  for  accumu- 
lating even  under  adverse  circumstances ;  but  if  it  did, 
those  who  suffered  by  it  would  always  have  a  remedy ; 
they  could  turn  to  the  State;  contribute  to  make  its 
management  better,  and  fit  it  to  take  the  industry 
which  gave  rise  to  accumulation  out  of  the  private 
hands  that  accumulated.  Thus  the  two  systems  would 
stand  forever  watching,  controlling,  and  supplementing 
one  another. 

Individualists  will  mock  at  this  system  of  labour 
cheques  as  barbarously  clumsy,  forgetting  that  this  very 
clumsiness  is  its  particular  virtue;  for  individualists 
cannot  rid  their  mind  of  the  idea  that  the  object  of 
manufacture  is  to  make  profit,  whereas  the  proper  in- 
tention of  manufacture  should  be  to  supply  wants. 

Under  the  labour  cheque  system,  therefore,  men  will 
be  set  to  manufacture  to  supply  a  want,  and  not  to  make 
profit;  and  manufacture  will  thereby  be  restored  to  its 
true  function,  and  rescued  from  the  false  function  to 
which  it  has  been  put  by  those  who  seek  to  make  profit 
for  themselves  out  of  the  labour  of  their  fellow-men. 


(Z)   Elimination  of  Corruption  hy  Substitution  of  Labour 
Cheques  for  Coin  as  Medium  of  Exchange 

Let  us  next  consider  the  role  which  joint-stock  corpora- 
tions and  coin  currency  play  in  political  corruption. 
There  are  two  obvious  methods  by  which  a  legislator  or 
official  can  be  bribed.  One  is  by  the  payment  of  money; 
the  other  l)y  the  contribution  of  stock.  This  last  takes 
different  forms.     Tlie  briber  either  offers  stock  out  and 


420  COLLECTIVISM 

out,  or,  when  the  legislator  is  a  little  fastidious,  he  is  told 
to  buy  stock  in  the  companies  to  be  benefited,  and  a 
margin  is  supplied  by  the  briber  to  cover  fluctuations. 

Now,  so  long  as  these  two  principal  instruments  of 
corruption  exist,  the  temptation  to  exercise  them  and 
be  influenced  by  them  is  too  great  for  many  of  our 
fellow-creatures,  whereas  if,  by  the  substitution  of 
labour  cheques  for  coin,  profit-making  were  practically 
eliminated,  these  two  instruments  of  corruption  would 
cease  to  exist,  and  it  is  diflicult  to  see  how  they  could 
be  replaced ;  for  the  sudden  possession  of  labour  cheques 
by  an  official  would  have  to  be  explained,  and  would,  in 
fact,  be  inexplicable  in  any  quantities  sufficient  to 
constitute  a  bribe. 

A  money  bribe  can  be  more  conveniently  handled. 
The  sudden  possession  of  a  large  sum  of  money  by  a 
poor  official  would,  of  course,  create  suspicion;  but 
money  can  be  put  safely  away;  it  can  be  locked  in  a 
safe  until  it  is  invested  in  small  enough  fractions  to 
escape  inquiry. 

Labour  cheques  could  not  be  thus  concealed;  they 
have  to  be  used  within  a  limited  period,  or  they  have  to 
be  invested  in  commodities  within  that  period,  or  they 
must  be  exchanged  in  a  bank  within  that  period.  They 
are  clumsy,  and  their  clumsiness  is  their  advantage  to 
the  community;  for  their  clumsiness  makes  corruption 
as  well  as  accumulation  difficult. 


(m)  Land, 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  the  first  steps  of 
collectivism  in  the  direction  of  ownership  of  land  are 
likely  to  be  taken  for  the  purpose  of  creating  farm  col- 
onies for  paupers  and  criminals,  and  for  the  purpose  of 


PRACTICAL   WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     421 

erecting  suitable  buildings  for  the  housing  of  State 
officials;  but  it  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  the 
application  of  single  tax  might  be  a  still  more  likely 
method  of  securing  State  ownership.  The  theory  of 
single  tax  has  not  been  given  the  attention  that  it 
perhaps  deserves  in  this  volume  because  it  has  given 
rise  to  controversy,  and  the  claims  of  its  adherents 
seem  greater  than  the  theory  warrants.  In  other 
words,  the  application  of  single  tax  does  not  seem  suffi- 
ciently effectual  in  one  sense,  and  in  others  it  might 
become  altogether  too  much  or  too  rapidly  so.  It  has 
been  deemed  wise,  therefore,  to  omit  from  our  study  of 
collectivism  this  particular  method  proposed  for  attain- 
ing it;  the  more  so  as  other  more  direct  methods  seem 
sufficiently  efficacious. 

But  there  are  other  methods  for  State  acquisition  of 
lands  which  might  anticipate  those  already  mentioned; 
for  example,  a  repetition  of  such  a  condition  of  things 
as  occurred  a  few  years  ago  in  New  England,  where 
thousands  of  farms  were  abandoned  because  they  did 
not  furnish  a  sufficient  inducement  for  cultivation.  This 
opportunity  has  now  been  largely  seized  by  men  of 
means,  who  have  converted  these  abandoned  farms  into 
summer  homes,  for  which  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
country  admirably  fits  them.  If  such  a  state  of  things, 
however,  were  to  take  place  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale 
in  our  prairie  States,  which  afford  few  attractions  for 
summer  residence,  a  State  bent  upon  extending  its  ac- 
quisitions to  land  would  doubtless  avail  itself  of  the 
opportunity. 

And  the  use  to  which  the  State  would  put  such  acqui- 
sitions would  depend  largely  upon  the  conditions  then 
prevailing.  If  the  land  was  abandoned  for  some  reason 
which  the  State  could  eliminate,  as  lack  of  railroad 
accommodation,    or   high   rates    of   transportation,    the 


422  COLLECTIVISM 

State  would  doubtless  use  the  land  for  the  purpose  of 
collective  production.  If,  however,  the  culture  of  the 
land  were  abandoned  because  of  infertility  requiring 
slow  and  expensive  treatment,  the  State  would  apply  it 
to  the  purposes  of  a  farm  colony,  where  the  education 
of  the  pauper  or  criminal  was  of  more  importance  than 
agricultural  profits. 

Once,  however,  the  State  became  a  large  owner  of 
laud,  the  economy  of  State  production  and  distribution  ^ 
will  enable  the  State  to  offer  farm  jjroduce  at  lower 
prices  than  private  owners.  These  lower  prices,  how- 
ever, will  benefit  only  a  part  of  the  population,  for  at 
the  initial  stage  only  officials  receive  State  orders  avail- 
able at  public  stores,  and  State  orders  alone  receive  the 
benefit  of  the  lower  prices  resulting  from  State  produc- 
tion. To  others,  farm  produce  will  be  sold  at  market 
prices.  As,  however,  the  official  world  would  increase 
in  size,  the  demand  for  farm  produce  other  than  that 
produced  by  the  State  would  diminish,  prices  would  fall, 
and  the  individual  farmer  would  cease  to  produce  as 
profitably  as  before.  A  considerable  extension,  there- 
fore, of  State  production  is  likely  to  lead  to  agricultural 
distress.  This  distress,  however,  can  be  averted  by  a 
still  further  development  of  collectivism.  Every  farmer 
who  feels  the  competition  of  the  State  could  be  allowed 
to  sell  his  produce  to  the  State,  receiving  therefor  labour 
cheques,  and  profiting  thereby  from  the  lower  prices 
prevailing  at  the  public  stores.  Such  a  farmer  need 
not  be  deprived  of  his  farm;  indeed,  neither  a  farmer 
nor  a  farmer's  children  for  endless  generations  need  ever 
be  deprived  of  the  family  farm.  On  the  contrary,  it 
would  be  the  policy  of  a  wise  collectivist  State  to  keep 

1  It  is  everywhere  assumed  that  State  administration  is  good  ;  if  it  is 
not  good  it  will  not  be  tolerated,  individualists  will  resume  control,  and 
the  progress  of  collectivism  be  consequently  arrested. 


PRACTICAL   WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     423 

families  in  their  respective  farms.  Nor  should  the  task 
be  a  difficult  one.  For  what  would  be  the  possible  his- 
tory of  a  farmer  in  the  slow  development  of  the  coUec- 
tivist  State?  He  might  begin  by  paying  his  taxes  in 
produce ;  he  might  end  by  bringing  all  his  produce  to 
the  public  stores.  So  long  as  he  brought  a  proper 
amount  of  such  produce,  the  State  would  have  no 
reason  for  turning  him  out;  it  would  only  be  in  case  he 
grossly  failed  to  furnish  the  amount  of  produce  his 
acres  should  harvest  that  the  State  would  have  to  inter- 
fere. And  the  farmer  would  have  the  same  interest 
then  as  now  to  furnish  the  maximum  possible;  as  the 
more  he  furnished  the  more  would  he  be  entitled  to  take 
out  of  the  public  stores. 

The  farmer's  children  would  doubtless  be  attracted 
then,  as  now,  to  the  towns,  but  one  of  them  would  be 
encouraged  to  remain  on  the  farm,  because  the  farm 
would  furnish  them  all  a  summer  home.  And  it  would 
be  the  wisest  economy  of  a  collectivist  State  to  encour- 
age all  the  members  of  a  farmer's  family,  wheresoever 
they  reside,  to  return  during  the  harvesting  season  to 
the  ancestral  farm,  thus  emptying  the  cities  during  the 
months  least  fitted  for  city  life,  furnishing  the  country 
with  labour  at  the  time  when  labour  is  most  needed 
there,  and  maintaining  the  family  affection,  from  which 
all  other  human  sympathy  starts.  Then,  indeed,  will 
Thanksgiving  Day  have  restored  to  it  its  original  sig- 
nificance and  become  a  national  holiday  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  form. 

Nor  does  it  seem  necessary  for  State  ownership  to  be 
extended  to  farm  lands,  except  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting idleness  or  checking  land  hunger.  Whatever 
land  a  family  can  profitably  cultivate,  it  ought  to  be 
allowed  to  cultivate,  no  farmer  being  allowed  to  exploit 
a  farm  labourer,  through  the  wealth  of  the  one  or  the 


424  COLLECTIVISM 

poverty  of  the  other;  but,  both  being  put  on  a  basis  of 
equality  by  the  assurance  to  both  of  the  necessaries  of 
life,  liberty  of  contract  becomes  for  the  first  time  possible. 
And  so  a  farmer  needing  labour  would  apply  to  the 
State  for  it;  the  State  would  furnish  it;  and  the  happi- 
ness of  both  employer  and  employ^  would  depend,  not 
upon  economic,  but  upon  personal  considerations.  Each 
would  have  an  interest  in  being  personally  agreeable  to 
the  other;  the  employer,  so  as  to  have  the  benefit  of 
cheerful  and  effectual  service;  the  employ^  so  as  to 
have  the  benefit  of  a  comfortable  home.  And  if  they 
quarrelled,  the  quarrel  would  ultimately  tend  to  injure 
the  one  at  fault ;  for  an  employer  who  quarrelled  with 
all  his  employes  would  lose  the  benefit  of  additional 
help,  and  the  employd  who  quarrelled  with  all  his  em- 
ployers would  be  relegated  to  State  farms  and  eventually 
to  pauper  colonies.  And  so  personal  relations  would 
be  very  much  then  what  they  are  now,  except  that  the 
economic  causes  for  misery  would  be  eliminated;  and 
we  are  thus  brought  to  the  conclusion  for  which  we  were 
prepared  at  the  outset,  that  collectivism  is  essentially  a 
matter  of  economics. 

(n)  Domestic  Service 

One  of  the  features  of  collectivism  which  render  it 
most  repugnant  to  the  educated  and  wealthy  is  that  it 
seems  to  make  domestic  service  impossible ;  and  the  edu- 
cated are  so  accustomed  to  lean  on  this  kind  of  service 
that  they  cannot  conceive  of  existence  being  tolerable 
without  it. 

Individualists  used  to  dispose  of  collectivism  on  this 
score  by  the  question,  "  Who  will  black  our  boots  under 
your  collectivist  regime  ?  "  This  attack  upon  the  whole 
moral,    political,    and   economic   theory  united   in   the 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF   COLLECTIVISM     425 

word  ''collectivism  "  has  had  much  of  its  virus  removed 
by  the  late  introduction  among  fashionable  people  of 
yellow  shoes  that  do  not  need  blacking ;  and  this  pin- 
prick into  the  inflated  arguments  of  individualism  is  a 
type  of  much  that  is  said  for  and  against  the  details  of 
collectivist  life.  It  is  easy  for  individualists,  resting 
comfortably  in  the  luxuries  provided  by  the  system  they 
uphold,  to  ridicule  conditions  in  which  the  prospect  of 
their  ever  being  deprived  of  their  luxuries  becomes  suffi- 
ciently humorous  to  carry  with  it  a  conviction  of  its 
impracticability.  But  the  questions  involved  are  too 
serious  to  be  disposed  of  by  a  joke. 

Domestic  service,  like  slavery,  may  long  still  be  ne- 
cessary, not  only  for  the  masters,  but  also  for  the  ser- 
vants, and  it  is  probably  the  institution  which  will  be 
the  last  to  go.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  will  never  go.  Per- 
haps there  will  always  be  born  into  the  world  men  and 
women  naturally  fitted  for  nothing  but  domestic  service ; 
perhaps  also  domestic  service  may  remain  indispensable 
to  the  educated  class:  but  there  is  something  in  these 
words  which  is  familiar;  they  seem  to  have  been  heard 
before.  In  the  fifties  this  is  exactly  what  slaveholders 
contended  regarding  their  slaves;  and  yet  the  slave- 
holders have  learned  to  do  without  slaves;  and  their 
slaves,  a  naturally  subject  race,  seem  to  be  learning  to 
earn  their  own  livelihood. 

It  is  by  no  means  indispensable  to  the  demonstration 
of  the  superiority  of  collectivist  over  individualist  econ- 
omy that  we  should  describe  just  how  the  community  is 
one  day  to  dispense  with  domestic  service.  Even  though 
collectivism  never  attained  the  development  which 
would  dispense  with  domestic  service,  it  would,  by  the 
practical  abolition  of  pauperism,  prostitution,  and  for  the 
most  part  of  crime,  have  rendered  an  incalculable  ser- 
vice to  mankind. 


426  COLLECTIVISM 

Moreover,  as  has  been  already  explained,  invention 
will  be  directed  in  a  collectivist  community  towards 
diminishing  the  need  for,  and  the  drudgery  of,  domestic 
service.  Already  this  has  been  to  a  great  extent  accom- 
plished. The  introduction  of  hot  and  cold  water  into 
every  bedroom,  though  open  to  objections  arising  from 
imperfect  plumbing,  which  are  easily  removable,  greatly 
diminishes  the  labour  of  servants ;  the  same  may  be  said 
of  a  more  extensive  use  of  bath-rooms  and  closets.  The 
introduction  of  cheap  fuel  gas  would  lighten  the  labour 
of  cooking  and  eliminate  the  dust  and  dirt  of  our  exist- 
ing coal  ranges.  Dust  could  be  eliminated  from  our 
streets,  and  in  great  part,  therefore,  from  our  homes,  by 
the  substitution  of  mechanical  for  animal  traction  and 
asphalt  for  stone  pavement  and  macadam.  When  a  few 
generations  of  those  who  fare  sumptuously  every  day 
have  been  replaced  by  a  less  gluttonous  progeny,  a  very 
slight  modification  of  meal-time  would  again  diminish 
the  necessity  for  domestic  service.  The  breakfast  to 
which  the  entire  French  nation  has  accustomed  itself  can 
be  prepared  with  the  minimum  of  labour;  the  midday 
meal  would  be  the  only  one  requiring  much  preparation, 
the  evening  meal  being  restored  to  the  simplicity  which 
is  recommended  by  hygiene,  and  therefore  contributes 
to  comfort  and  well-being. 

If  our  memories  carry  us  back  to  the  days  which 
immediately  followed  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  we 
shall  recall  many  a  delicate  lady  who,  in  the  conquered 
South,  deprived  of  her  slaves  and  too  poor  to  pay  ser- 
vants, did  the  domestic  service  of  the  entire  family 
without  losing  her  refinement  or  even  imperilling  the 
whiteness  of  her  hands.  Indeed,  to  some  of  us  the  per- 
formance of  this  menial  service  gave  to  the  Southern 
lady  a  new  interest  and  a  new  dignity,  and  we  are 
tempted  to  inquire  which  of  the  two,  the  Southern  lady 


PRACTICAL  WORKING   OF  COLLECTIVISM     427 

before  the  war,  who  did  nothing,  or  the  Southern  lady- 
after  the  war,  who  did  everything,  was  most  entitled  to 
our  affection  and  our  esteem. 


§  5.  Summary 

Let  us  now  briefly  resume  the  stages  through  which  it 
is  imagined  a  collectivist  State  is  likely  to  pass. 

I.  Partial  Collectivism.  In  the  first  stage  the  State 
issues  to  all  working  for  it  transferable  orders  on  public 
stores,  expressed  in  currency,  and  this  it  continues  to 
do  until  it  has  become  sufficiently  master  of  the  sources 
of  production  to  realise  the  economies  of  collectivism. 
It  will  acquire  enough  land  to  create  more  or  less  self- 
supporting  colonies  of  different  grades  which  will  assure 
work  to  every  person  ajjplying  for  it,  and  to  which 
paupers,  criminals,  and  prostitutes  will  be  committed; 
different  degrees  of  crime,  prostitution,  and  pauperism 
being  kept  in  different  colonies,  so  as  to  permit  of  gradu- 
ation from  the  lowest  grade,  through  intermediate  grades, 
into  those  where  no  coercion  is  necessary,  thereby  pro- 
viding, not  only  for  reformation,  but  for  restoration  to 
community  life.  During  this  initial  stage  pauperism 
and  prostitution  ought  entirely  to  disappear  with  the 
economic  conditions  that  give  rise  to  them,  and  crime  to 
be  much  reduced.  The  economies  of  collectivist  pro- 
duction and  distribution  will  be  applied  to  slowly  raising 
the  wages  of  its  employes  to  a  single  standard.  When 
this  single  standard  is  realised,  it  will  be  in  a  position 
to  pass  to  the  next  stage,  called  — 

II.  Collectivism  Pro'per.  In  this  stage  the  State  begins 
by  confining  itself  to  the  purchase  of  all  monopolies  and 
quasi  monopolies,  —  such  as  railroads,  municipal  fran- 
chises, and  trusts,  —  and  to  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  necessaries.     It  need  not  attempt  to  produce 


428  COLLECTIVISM 

luxuries.  All  persons  in  the  State  are  required  to  per- 
form necessary  labour  in  as  nearly  equal  proportions  as 
may  be,  piece  work  being  applied  to  the  utmost  possible, 
for  the  double  purpose  of  encouraging  efficiency  and 
furnishing  to  every  man  the  opportunity  to  get  through 
his  compulsory  work  in  the  shortest  possible  time.  In 
exchange  for  compulsory  work,  which,  it  is  assumed, 
will  take  only  a  comparatively  small  part  of  the  day, 
every  citizen  is  provided  with  lodging  and  dividend 
coupons,  which  he  can  apply  as  he  chooses  to  the  pur- 
chase of  clothing  and  food.  But  outside  of  State  enter- 
prise, individual  enterprise  will  flourish  to  whatever 
extent  the  genius  of  the  people  shall  determine ;  indi- 
vidual enterprise  may  even  compete  with  State  enter- 
prise; coin  currency  may  be  maintained;  farms  may 
continue  to  be  worked  by  farmers  upon  the  condition  of 
furnishing  to  the  State  a  given  product  per  acre  accord- 
ing to  the  fertility  of  the  soil. 

But  during  this  stage  an  advance  may  be  made  by 
substituting  for  coin  currency  a  system  of  voluntary 
labour  cheques,  transferable  but  limited  in  time,  with 
a  view  to  preventing  corruption  and  accumulation. 
These  volimtary  labour  cheques  would  probably  be 
issued  primarily  by  the  State  as  soon  as  it  undertook  to 
produce  other  things  besides  necessaries;  and  if  the 
State,  by  the  ownership  of  mines  and  considerable  con- 
trol of  foreign  trade,  could  withdraw  coin  from  circula- 
tion, and  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  do  so,  it  could 
force  the  system  of  voluntary  labour  cheques  on  private 
enterprise  also. 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM     429 


§  6.   The  Ideal  Collectivist  State 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  the  adoption  of  the 
collectivist  theory  of  economics  or  to  the  political  pro- 
gramme of  collectivism,  that  we  should  be  able  at  this 
time  to  demonstrate  clearly  and  precisely  that  the  ideal 
collectivist  State  —  that  is  to  say,  a  State  in  which  there 
is  no  private  enterprise  whatever  —  is  practically  possi- 
ble. The  preceding  sections  have  attempted  to  show 
that  the  slow  adoption  of  the  collectivist  theory  would 
have  for  result,  at  different  stages  of  its  development, 
first,  the  elimination  of  pauperism,  ^prostitution,  and  in 
great  part  of  crime,  and,  secondly,  the  elimination  of 
the  corrupting  instrument  of  gold  and  joint-stock  com- 
panies. The  effort  has  also  been  made  to  show  that 
this  would  not  be  attended  by  a  blunting  of  individual 
enterprise,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  by  increasing  the 
leisure  of  every  man  and  assuring  him  the  necessaries  and 
probably  the  comforts  of  life,  he  would  for  the  first  time 
in  human  experience  enjoy  true  liberty.  If  such  a  re- 
sult were  achieved,  it  would  be  attended  by  a  total 
transformation  of  human  character,  the  perpetual  effort 
to  improve  one's  own  condition  regardless  of  conse- 
quences to  others  having  been  replaced  by  a  similar 
effort  to  improve  the  social  condition  of  all  for  the  legiti- 
mate consideration  and  affection  which  such  improvement 
would  bestow.  When,  by  the  elimination  of  coin  as 
currency,  private  enterprise  becomes  engaged  in  satisfy- 
ing a  general  want,  not  for  profit,  but  directly  for  con- 
sideration, and  when  consideration  can  be  secured  only 
by  voluntary  service,  sympathy,  and  affection,  and  no 
longer  through  wealth  or  money,  the  environment  will 
be  so  changed  that  it  seems  unphilosophical  to  attempt 
now  to  forecast  the  exact  social  and  political  conditions 


430  COLLECTIVISM 

that  will  result.  Christianity  has  suffered  from  the 
attempt  to  describe  a  future  State  which  our  present 
mental  and  moral  structure  makes  us  unable  to  under- 
stand or  appreciate.  So  also  collectivism  would  prob- 
ably suffer  by  an  attempt  to  define  conditions  for  which 
we  are  now  wholly  unprepared. 

The  political  student  cannot  be  asked  to  do  more 
than  to  show  reasonable  ground  for  believing  that  col- 
lectivism slowly  and  wisely  introduced  can  eliminate  the 
evils  which  are  to-day  the  greatest  shame  to  our  civilisa- 
tion, that  it  conforms  to  the  demands  of  justice,  that  it 
violates  no  necessary  laws  of  nature,  and  that  it  assures 
the  truest  liberty.  The  task  of  describing  the  social, 
political,  and  economic  millennium  to  which  collectivism 
may  give  rise  must  be  left  to  works  of  poetry  and  imag- 
ination, a  flight  of  literature  to  which  the  present  volume 
does  not  aspire. 

In  conclusion,  then,  although  no  attempt  to  justify 
ideal  collectivism  is  made,  the  conditions  presented  by 
what  has  been  called  partial  collectivism  and  collectivism 
proper  seem  practicable  and  worthy  of  earnest  consider- 
ation. In  the  foregoing  brief  sketch  the  effort  to  show 
that  the  many  insoluble  problems  presented  by  the  exist- 
ing industrial  system  would  find  their  solution  under  a 
collectivist  State,  has  been  far  from  exhaustive.  For 
example,  all  those  who  study  the  question  of  taxation 
with  any  care  will  unanimously  admit  that  no  scheme  of 
taxation  has  ever  been  framed  or  is  likely  to  be  framed 
under  our  existing  institutions  that  does  not  bear  more 
hardly  upon  one  part  of  the  community  than  another; 
and  that  a  just  system  of  taxation  is  exposed  to  in- 
convenience so  great  as  to  be  practically  prohibitive. 
All,  too,  will  admit  that  in  the  injustice  that  attends 
taxation  the  honest  are  likely  to  suffer  more  than  the 


PRACTICAL  WORKING  OF  COLLECTIVISM       431 

dishonest;  that  taxation  is  directly  the  cause  of  mani- 
fold forms  of  dishonesty  in  the  effort  that  men  make  to 
escape  it;  and  that,  all  men  being  subject  to  the  same 
pressure  and  engaged  in  the  same  task,  there  has  grown 
a  tolerance  of  dishonesty  in  this  particular  direction 
which  exerts  a  demoralising  effect  upon  the  whole  com- 
munity. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  taxa- 
tion would  disappear  in  the  collectivist  State.  If  now 
we  take  into  account  the  fact  that  under  a  collectiv- 
ist form  of  government  all  the  pauperism  that  results 
under  our  present  industrial  system  from  over-produc- 
tion, from  the  sweated  industries,  and  from  the  conflict 
between  capital  and  labour,  would  disappear;  that  pros- 
titution would  also  disappear;  that  the  dishonesty  which 
results  from  the  relation  of  business  to  politics,  and  the 
dishonesty  which  is  stimulated  by  competition  in  busi- 
ness would  disappear;  and  that  the  tolerance  of  evil 
which  has  been  seen  to  constitute  the  necessary  result  of 
the  relations  of  every  church  to  every  State  would  also 
disappear,  —  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  evils  attend- 
ing collectivism  must  indeed  be  great  in  order  to  com- 
pensate such  priceless  advantages  as  these. 

And  when  we  consider  the  standard  objections  to  col- 
lectivism, they  seem  to  fall  to  pieces  one  after  another. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  in  the  present  condition  of  igno- 
rance and  selfishness  an  attempt  to  impose  collectivism 
upon  us  to-morrow  would  be  more  likely  to  occasion  a 
destructive  revolution  than  a  constructive  benefit;  but 
if  time  be  given  for  the  slow  adaptation  of  human 
character  to  the  new  order  of  things,  it  seems  impossi- 
ble to  deny  that  collectivism  furnishes,  not  a  Utopia 
which  men  can  never  attain,  but  a  model  of  government 
to  which  men  should  at  any  rate  slowly  direct  their 
steps;  and  under  such  a  form  of  government  not  only 
would  the  home  be  preserved  in  its  entirety,  but  every 


432  COLLECTIVISM 

individual  would  secure  tlie  greatest  freedom  of  action 
consistent  with  the  greatest  security  from  risk ;  under 
it  we  should  have  at  last  created  an  environment  calcu- 
lated to  stimulate  the  noble  qualities  of  man  rather  than 
those  which  are  base,  and  promote  a  higher  type  rather 
than  one  that  is  degenerate;  and  under  it  alone  can 
we  ever  hope  to  come  up  to  the  standards  of  morality 
set  up  for  us  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  433 


CHAPTER   VI 

SUMMARY   AND    CONCLUSION 

Before  attempting  to  draw  a  general  conclusion  from 
the  arguments  hereinbefore  presented,  let  us  briefly 
summarise  these  arguments  and  connect  the  particular 
conclusions  to  which  we  have  come. 

The  word  "  nature  "  is  for  the  most  part  used  to  in- 
clude everything  in  the  world  except  spirit  and  art. 
Everything  we  call  natural  is  so  called  to  contrast  it 
with  things  spiritual  or  artificial.  We  have  therefore 
concluded  not  to  use  the  words  "nature  "  and  "natural  " 
in  such  a  way  as  to  confoand  them  with  the  words 
" spiritual  "  and  "artificial,"  with  which  they  are  con- 
trasted. They  have  accordingly  been  used  to  include 
everything  that  is  material  in  the  world  unaffected  by 
the  conscious  effort  of  man ;  and  to  exclude,  therefore, 
conscious,  deliberate,  non-natural,  or  religious,  human 
effort;  this  last  being  expressed  by  the  words  "artifi- 
cial" and  "spiritual."^     And  as  man  is  himself  found 

^  The  use  of  the  word  "nature,"  here  suggested,  is  by  no  means  intended 
to  convey  that  human  evolution  is  not  a  part  of  the  evohition  that  pre- 
ceded man,  as  some  of  the  critics  of  the  first  volume  seem  to  have  inferred. 
(See  Professor  Giddings's  review  in  the  "  Political  Science  Quarterly  "  for 
December.)  It  is  proposed  to  exclude  from  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"nature"  what  we  call  art  and  spirit,  because  the  word  "nature "is 
currently  used  in  contrast  and  opposition  to  the  words  "art"  and 
"  spirit,"  as  is  the  word  "natural "  used  in  contrast  and  opposition  to  the 
words  "artificial"  and  "spiritual."  To  use  the  word  "nature"  at  one 
time  to  include  art  and  spirit,  and  at  another  in  opposition  to  art  and 
spirit,  is  to  court  confusion.  The  extent  of  the  confusion  resulting  from 
this  double  and  inconsistent  use  of  the  word   "nature"  has  already  been 

28 


434  COLLECTIVISM 

to  include  two  personalities,  —  one  a  mere  automaton, 
partaking  of  the  undeliberate,  unconscious  mechanism 
of  the  lower  animals  and  including  the  purely  natural 
part  of  him,  and  the  other  a  conscious,  deliberate,  con- 
trolling personality,  which  we  may,  for  the  purpose  of 
this  argument,  call  will,  —  we  are  led  by  our  definition 
to  include  the  human  automaton  in  the  word  "nature," 
but  to  exclude  the  human  will.  When  we  apply  this 
definition  to  the  expressions,  "natural  law,"  "moral 
law,"  "law  of  nature,"  "natural  rights,"  we  are  driven 
by  it  to  recognise  that  natural  law  is  a  totally  different 
thinff  from  moral  law  and  that  it  is  fatal  to  confound 
them.  For  the  law  of  nature  which  determines  the  re- 
lations of  animals  to  one  another  is  the  law  of  natural 
selection,  —  a  law  that  ignores  mercy  and  justice,  and  is 
for  that  reason  diametrically  the  opposite  of  the  moral 
law,  which  takes  account  of  little  else.  And  so  in  treat- 
ing of  matters  sociological  we  have  decided  to  confine  the 
words  "  law  of  nature  "  and  "  natural  law  "  to  the  law  of 
natural  selection,  and  never  again  to  use  them  to  include 
the  moral  law,  which  is  diametrically  opposed  to  them. 
And  as  to  the  words  "natural  rights,"  we  have  de- 
cided to  obliterate  them  from  the  language  altogether, 
because  if  they  can  be  deemed  to  have  any  meaning 
at  all,  it  must  be  held  to  be  misleading.  There  are  no 
rights  in  nature ;  rights  are  the  creation  of  man. 

dwelt  on  in  the  first  volume,  and  need  not  therefore  be  repeated  here. 
But  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  absence  of  any  intention  to  betray  the 
reader  into  an  admission  of  a  break  or  discontinuity  between  nature  and 
art  or  spirit,  it  is  suggested  that  the  words  "  cosmos  "  and  "cosmic  "  can 
conveniently  be  used  to  include  all  three,  —  nature,  art,  and  spirit. 
Under  this  phraseology  there  is  only  one  evolution,  —  cosmic  evolution; 
but  cosmic  evolution  can  be  conveniently  divided  into  natural  and 
artificial,  or  prse-human  and  human,  the  ambiguity  of  the  word 
"nature"  being  thereby  eliminated  and  the  question  of  the  continuity 
of  cosmic  evolution  left  undisputed. 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  435 

The  law  of  natural  selection,  or,  as  it  is  generally 
called,  the  law  of  evolution,  we  have  found  to  be  very 
different  from  that  of  human  selection,  because  man  is 
no  longer  a  mere  product  of  the  environment  of  nature, 
but  has  created  for  himself  an  environment  of  his  own. 
This  artificial  environment  created  by  man  is  the  result- 
ant of  several  forces  which  have  at  different  periods  of 
human  history  operated  in  different  directions;  these 
forces  are  selfishness,  intelligence,  and  religion,  and, 
taken  singly,  these  three  forces  may  be  regarded  as 
respectively  the  instruments  of  nature,  art,  and  spirit. 
At  times  it  would  seem  as  though  spirit  and  art  were 
allied  against  nature,  as  in  the  gospel  of  Christ  and 
in  the  epistles  of  Saint  Paul;  but  most  of  the  time 
nature  is  strong  enough  to  harness  both  to  her  chariot 
wheels.  We  find,  therefore,  that  the  artificial  environ- 
ment created  by  man  —  that  is  to  say,  his  social  and 
political  institutions — has  been  for  the  most  part  sug- 
gested by  selfishness,  but  that  this  selfishness  has  been 
tempered  by  religion  and  intelligence.  The  most 
striking  feature,  however,  in  human  history  is  that 
although  man  seems  to  be  consciously  creating  his  own 
institutions,  they  are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  for  the  most 
part  the  product  of  a  selfish  instinct  profoundly  igno- 
rant and  generally  proceeding  in  a  direction  hostile  to 
human  happiness  in  general. 

In  other  words,  although  the  conscious  deliberate  pur- 
pose of  man  has  been  resisting  nature  for  thousands  of 
years,  what  with  the  ignorance  with  which  the  struggle 
has  been  maintained  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  perpetual 
stimulation  of  the  selfish  automaton  by  the  artificial 
environment  created  by  himself  on  the  other,  it  will 
have  to  be  admitted  that  improvement  has  been  inter- 
mittent and  extremely  slow. 

But  it  is  because  man  has  not  been  clearly  alive  to 


436  COLLECTIVISM 

the  factors  of  the  problem  before  him  that  he  has  to  so 
great  an  extent  failed.  A  few  flashes  of  intelligence 
have  occasionally  illuminated  his  path,  and  some  of 
these  flashes  have  been  briefly  referred  to  in  the  preced- 
ing pages ;  but  they  have  partaken  of  the  character  of 
genius  in  a  few,  rather  than  of  intelligence  in  the  many ; 
and  this  mainly  because  the  artificial  environment 
created  by  man  has  been  such  as  to  blunt  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  many  and  to  stimulate  selfishness ;  whereas 
the  truest  happiness  of  the  race  would,  on  the  contrary, 
be  promoted  by  institutions  that  would  stimulate  the 
intelligence  of  the  mass  and  diminish  the  egotism  of  all. 

The  question  whether  our  institutions  can  be  so  mod- 
ified as  to  increase  the  happiness  of  man  and  diminish 
their  unhappiness  is  the  main  question  presented  for 
solution  in  this  book;  and  it  has  been  shown  that  in 
order  to  prepare  ourselves  for  an  answer  to  it  we  have 
to  take  into  account  one  after  another,  in  the  first 
place  the  character  of  the  environment  produced  by 
nature,  in  the  second  place  the  character  of  the  environ- 
ment created  by  man,  and  in  the  third  place  the  nature 
of  the  human  temperament  or  social  mind  which  has 
been  the  product  of  this  last  environment ;  and  partic- 
ularly how  far  by  change  of  the  environment  the  social 
mind  is  still  subject  to  modification  thereby. 

The  study  of  these  two  environments  —  the  natural 
and  the  human  —  has  led  us  to  the  conclusion  that  while 
the  latter  has  resulted  in  a  distinct  improvement  of  type 
through  the  self-restraint  necessitated  by  such  an  insti- 
tution as  marriage,  the  artificial  environment,  neverthe- 
less, preserves,  through  the  maintenance  of  the  competi- 
tive system,  still  so  much  of  the  natural  j^redatory  law 
that  further  improvement  is  likely  to  be  miserably  slow 
if,  indeed,  it  takes  place  at  all. 

The  role  of  selfishness  in  dragging  down  religion  and 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  437 

every  high  ideal,  whether  in  terms  religious  or  not,  has 
been  traced  throughout  recorded  history,  and  the  con- 
clusion has  been  drawn  that  so  long  as  our  institutions 
are  the  mere  result  of  the  conflict  between  the  selfishness 
of  one  class  and  that  of  another,  the  improvement  is 
likely  to  be  so  slow  that,  when  we  compare  it  with  the 
agony  it  occasions,  we  cannot  but  be  filled  with  despair. 
Indeed,  we  have  seen  that  there  are  two  tendencies  at 
work  in  our  present  system  which  may  destroy  our  civil- 
isation faster  than  improvement  can  vitalise  it.  For  in 
the  first  place  the  artificial  conditions  we  have  created 
tend  to  degenerate  type  through  the  reckless  fertility  of 
the  lowest  types  and  the  comparative  infertility  of  the 
best.  And  in  the  second  place  recent  inventions,  such 
as  railroads,  telegraphs,  telephones,  —  in  fact,  steam,  and 
electricity  in  all  their  operations,  —  are  continually  en- 
gaged in  unconsciously  speeding  up  the  machinery  of 
which  we  form  part,  and  in  wearing  us  out  before  our 
time. 

One  of  the  devices  by  which  employers  slowly  seek  to 
get  more  work  out  of  their  factory  hands  without  a 
corresponding  rise  in  wages  is  imperceptibly  to  speed  up 
the  machinery,  so  that  in  the  same  amount  of  time  the 
same  number  of  hands  produce  a  much  larger  outjiut. 
But  the  speeding  up  of  machinery  has  been  found  to  be 
so  exhausting  to  workmen  that  in  the  cotton  indus- 
tries and  many  others  they  have  compelled  their  employ- 
ers to  adopt  an  elaborate  system  of  piece  work,  so  that 
every  speeding  up  of  the  machinery  will  involve  either 
higher  wages  for  the  operators  or  shorter  hours.  It  has 
been  estimated  that  a  hand-loom  weaver  can  work  thir- 
teen hours  a  day  without  exhaustion,  whereas  mule- 
spinners  complain  that  they  are  exhausted  by  more  than 
eight.  ^     We  are  not  all  of  us  sufficiently  alive  to  the 

1  The  Cotton  Trade  in  England  and  on  the  Continent,  by  Dr.  G.  von 
Schulze  Gaevernitz,  London,  1895,  pp.  126,  127. 


438  COLLECTIVISM 

extent  to  which  the  pressure  at  which  we  work  has 
been  increased  by  modern  invention.  The  fact  that  tlie 
cable  and  telephone  puts  every  business  man  in  imme- 
diate connection  with  every  part  of  the  civilised  globe 
imposes  upon  him  the  necessity  for  a  rapidity  of  decision 
that  is  in  the  highest  degree  exhausting.  Every  man 
who  has  had  to  correspond  much  by  cable  will  testify 
to  the  infinitely  higher  degree  of  concentration  that  it 
requires  over  that  of  corresponding  by  mail.  Moreover, 
a  man  who  sits  at  his  desk  with  a  telephone  at  his  side 
continually  putting  him  in  communication  with  other 
offices,  cables  brought  in  to  him  at  every  moment,  some 
of  which  exact  an  immediate  answer,  letters  brought  by 
a  messenger  with  instructions  to  wait  for  a  reply,  a 
client  in  the  chair  in  front  of  him,  and  perhaps  several 
other  clients  waiting  for  him  in  the  adjoining  room,  is 
not  conducting  one  business  matter  at  a  time,  but  a 
dozen ;  he  is  not  conversing  with  one  man,  but  a  dozen ; 
his  faculty  for  transacting  business  is  increased  twelve- 
fold, but  the  strain  upon  him  is  increased  twelve-fold 
also. 

Under  this  strain  our  business  men  are  daily  breaking 
down,  and,  if  this  strain  be  taken  in  connection  with  the 
tendency  of  type  to  degenerate,  as  above  mentioned,  it 
threatens  us  with  a  danger  not  only  sensible  in  degree 
but  imminent  in  time.  It  is  possible  that  the  present 
competitive  system  may  over-stimulate  the  best  of  us 
and  under-stimulate  the  rest,  and  in  such  case  it  is  a 
matter  for  serious  question  whether  the  extremely  slow 
tendency  to  improvement  may  not  be  overtaken  by  the 
more  rapid  tendency  to  degeneration. 

With  a  view,  then,  to  concluding  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible for  man,  by  intelligence  and  effort,  to  hasten  the 
rescue  of  man  from  the  sufferings  to  which  his  present 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  439 

institutions  commit  him,  we  have  endeavoured  to  clear 
our  minds  regarding  a  few  of  the  questions  which  in 
practical  politics  seem  most  to  perplex  us;  and  among 
these  perplexing  problems  first  in  order  comes  the  ques- 
tion what  justice  is. 

In  attempting  to  answer  this  question  we  have  been 
facilitated  by  having  come  to  a  clear  idea  of  nature  and 
natural  law;  for  the  moment  it  became  obvious  that 
nature  was  essentially  immoral  or  non-moral,  inasmuch 
as  it  recognised  no  right,  but,  on  the  contrary,  ruthlessly 
sacrificed  the  lives  of  the  unfit  many  to  the  survival  of 
the  favoured  few,  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  the  ultimate 
aim  of  human  institutions  is  to  protect  the  lives  of  all 
human  beings,  whether  fit  to  survive  or  not,  it  seemed 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  justice  of  man  consisted 
in  the  struggle  to  resist  the  injustice  of  nature ;  and  the 
more  closely  we  examined  nature  and  justice  from  this 
point  of  view,  the  more  clearly  it  appeared  that,  although 
our  institutions  have  as  a  matter  of  fact  been  for  the 
most  part  the  result  of  selfish  conflict,  they  have  seldom, 
if  ever,  advanced  the  happiness  of  men  except  when  they 
have  consciously  or  unconsciously  proceeded  upon  the 
plan  set  forth  in  this  definition  of  justice. 

And  one  of  the  most  important  conclusions  to  which 
we  were  led  by  this  view  of  nature  and  justice  was,  that 
nature  presents  two  kinds  of  obstacles  to  the  happiness 
of  man,  —  one  kind  which  man  can  by  no  political  insti- 
tution very  much  modify,  and  the  other  kind  which  man 
can,  by  substituting  wisdom  for  folly  in  the  making  of 
his  laws,  not  only  profoundly  affect,  but  even  put  an 
end  to  altogether.  This  classification  of  natural  obsta- 
cles to  happiness  served  to  limit  human  responsibility 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  accentuate  it  on  the  other;  so 
that  while  one  large  domain  of  human  effort  was  ad- 
mitted to  be  wholly  within   the   province   of  religion, 


440  COLLECTIVISM 

another  large  domain  of  human  effort  was  found  to  lie 
within  the  domain  of  politics ;  religion  being  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  the  life  of  man  in  his  individual  capacity, 
politics  being  chiefly  concerned  with  the  life  of  man  in 
his  social  relations. 

But  while  it  is  possible  to  separate  these  spheres  of 
activity  in  theory,  it  is  not  possible  to  separate  them  in 
practice ;  because  a  study  of  the  history  of  man  demon- 
strates that  so  long  as  the  political  institutions  which 
man  has  made  for  himself  are  such  as  perpetually  set 
him  upon  benefiting  himself  regardless  of  his  neighbour, 
religion  is  incapable  of  effectually  persuading  men  to 
conduct  their  lives  so  as  to  benefit  their  neighbours  re- 
gardless of  themselves.  The  hopeless  and  remediless 
inconsistency  between  the  preaching  of  politics  and  the 
preaching  of  religion  was  dwelt  upon  for  the  purpose 
of  demonstrating  the  necessity  of  a  profound  change  in 
our  political  system  if  we  are  ever  to  bring  about  a 
reconciliation  between  politics  and  religion. 

When  we  come  to  examine  the  inconsistency  that 
makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  practise  the  religious  prin- 
ciples that  we  profess,  it  is  found  to  result  mainly  from 
the  competitive  system.  The  competitive  system  to 
which  we  are  all  subjected  is  regarded  by  many  political 
philosophers  as  necessary,  because  it  is  the  system  of 
nature.  They,  however,  disregard  two  facts,  —  one  that 
man  is  no  longer  the  slave  of  nature,  but  in  part  its  lord ; 
and  the  other,  that  although  nature's  plan  is  essentially 
a  competitive  one,  it  also  has  found  room  for  co-opera- 
tion, as,  for  example,  in  communities  of  ants  and  bees. 
If  nature,  then,  can  work  upon  the  co-operative  plan  as 
well  as  the  competitive  one,  it  would  seem  as  though 
we  had  the  choice  between  them.  Moreover,  reason 
recommends  co-operation,  and  religion  commands  it. 

Nature,    however,    is   subject   to   limitations    within 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  441 

which  co-operation  seems  to  be  confined;  for  under 
nature's  plan  co-operation  sacrifices  the  individual  to 
the  community,  whereas  we  have  seen  it  to  be  an  essen- 
tial feature  of  human  design  to  make  the  community- 
serve  the  happiness  of  the  individual. 

Again,  nature's  community  plan  involves  the  entire 
sacrifice  —  not  to  say  the  massacre  —  of  one  sex.  It 
seems,  then,  as  though  we  could  not  copy  the  system  of 
nature,  because  the  system  of  nature  is  neither  expe- 
dient nor  just. 

For  the  solution  of  the  problem  just  presented  to  us, 
it  is  indispensable  that  we  should  have  clear  ideas  about 
government.  To  this  end  a  special  study  of  government 
and  society  was  made,  with  a  view  to  determining 
whether  society  was  or  was  not  an  organism,  and  what 
relation  government  bears  to  society. 

The  study  of  the  question  whether  society  is  an 
organism  or  not  led  us  to  the  following  conclusions :  In 
some  of  the  lowest  types  of  animals,  society  is  in  very 
fact  an  organism,  —  as,  for  example,  in  the  mixomycetes, 
the  sponge,  and  the  hydroids ;  for  in  all  these  the  free- 
moving  larvae  become  at  a  certain  stage  of  their  exist- 
ence merged  together  into  a  new  individual,  of  which 
they  become  almost  indistinguishable  parts.  The  larvae 
are  unable  to  resist  the  force  which  brings  them  to- 
gether; once  brought  together,  they  all  obey  a  law 
which  to  them  is  absolute  and  inexorable.  They  become 
differentiated  according  to  the  parts  of  the  individual  to 
which  they  belong,  and  are  compelled  by  the  law  of  their 
being  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  new  individual  with- 
out consideration  for  their  own,  which  indeed  has  become 
merged  in  the  new  organism  of  which  they  form  a  part. 
In  this  lowest  class  of  society  the  individual,  upon  be- 
coming a  part  of  this  society,  loses  all  capacity  of  indi- 
vidual action,  and  is  compelled,  by  a  law  over  which  it 


442  COLLECTIVISM 

has  no  control,  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  needs  of 
the  new  organism  of  which  it  has  become  a  part. 

As  animals  develop  we  find  that  the  societies  which 
they  form  involve  less  and  less  abandonment  by  the 
individual  of  the  capacity  of  individual  action.  The 
individuals  remain,  however,  subject  to  a  law  which 
they  seem  powerless  to  resist,  and  which  may  be  said  to 
constitute  the  law  of  their  society;  but,  nevertheless, 
every  individual  constituting  this  society  remains  capable 
of  free  motion.  Nature  presents  us  with  almost  every 
form  of  society,  from  the  loose  and  occasional  grouping 
of  wolves,  driven  by  exceptional  cold  to  hunt  in  packs, 
to  the  compact  and  continuous  grouping  of  bees  in  per- 
manent communities ;  all  are  characterised  by  practical 
freedom  of  individual  movement ;  and  yet,  the  more  per- 
manent the  social  bond,  the  more  the  individual  is 
sacrificed  to  the  community.  Thus  the  bee  will  use  its 
sting  in  defence  of  the  hive,  but,  in  using  it,  will  sacri- 
fice its  own  life.  And  the  ant  never  seems  to  work  for 
itself  directly,  but  always  for  the  community  to  which 
it  belongs. 

Nature,  therefore,  when  left  to  herself,  develops  ani- 
mals of  totally  different  kinds  along  two  lines  of  devel- 
opment that  in  one  respect  seem  diametrically  opposed 
to  each  other.  Along  one  line  it  develops  the  car- 
nivorous mammals,  which  in  proportion  as  they  grow 
powerful  grow  solitary.  In  another  line  we  see  her 
developing  the  insect  tribes,  which  in  proportion  as  they 
grow  social  grow  powerful.  Thus  the  competitive  sys- 
tem has  made  the  lion  king  in  Asia,  and  the  co-operative 
system  has  delivered  over  Africa  to  the  dominion  of  the 
ant.  Now,  the  law  which  governs  communities  of  ants 
is  as  much  the  law  of  nature  as  the  law  which  governs 
the  felidse ;  but  if  we  can  imagine  the  ant  as  conscious 
of  the  law  which  governs  its  community,  the  ant,  in 


SUIVIMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  443 

using  our  language,  would  describe  its  social  law  as  its 
government.  But  it  is  apparently  unable  to  change  its 
social  law  or  to  resist  it ;  the  social  law  of  the  ant-hill  is 
the  automatic  result  of  co-operation  developed  by  the 
competitive  system,  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
although  competition  is  eliminated  within  the  ant- 
hill, it  is  operating  without;  and  it  is  through  the 
operation  of  competition  without  the  ant-hill  that  the 
ant  has,  through  its  capacity  for  co-operation,  become 
the  terror  of  an  entire  continent. 

Communities  of  men  differ  from  those  of  animals  in 
two  respects :  man  is  able  consciously  and  deliberately 
to  determine  within  certain  limits  the  laws  of  his  gov- 
ernment; man  is  also  capable  of  exercising  a  high  order 
of  self-control.  It  has  been  shown  that  he  has  hereto- 
fore exercised  this  deliberation  and  self-control  only  at 
rare  intervals  to  any  great  extent,  and  only  slightly  dur- 
ing the  rest  of  the  time.  In  other  words,  two  processes 
are  going  on  in  the  development  of  human  society,  —  the 
unconscious  law  of  nature,  and  the  conscious  effort  of 
man.  In  so  far  as  the  former  is  at  work,  human  society 
is  still  an  organism ;  and  so  far  as  the  latter  is  at  work, 
human  society  is  also  a  construction.  Just  in  the  same 
way  as  human  society  is  partly  an  organism  and  partly 
a  construction,  so  is  human  government,  which  is  the 
law  of  human  society,  in  part  the  law  of  nature  and  in 
part  the  law  of  man.  But  man,  in  modifying  the  law 
of  nature,  does  so  in  two  different  ways.  When  human 
intelligence  allies  itself  with  human  selfishness,  it 
operates  to  enhance  the  injustice  of  the  competitive 
system.  When  human  intelligence  allies  itself  with 
morality,  it  operates  to  diminish  the  injustice  of  the 
competitive  system.  We  therefore  have  a  series  of 
alliances,  the  operation  of  which  it  is  important  to  keep 
in  mind,  —  the  alliance  of  selfishness  and  intelligence, 


444  COLLECTIVISM 

that  we  may  call  craft,  and  which  tends  to  appropriate 
the  docility  of  the  mass  to  its  own  use,  and  to  create  insti- 
tutions that  will  maintain  the  crafty  minority  in  power 
at  the  expense  of  the  uncrafty  majority ;  the  alliance  of 
selfishness  and  ignorance,  that  we  may  call  folly,  which 
makes  the  uncrafty  majority  an  easy  prey  to  the  crafty 
minority;  and  lastly,  opposed  to  these  two,  the  alliance 
between  intelligence  and  self-control  or  morality,  called 
wisdom,  which  seeks  to  attain  justice. 

The  operation,  then,  of  craft  and  folly  is  to  maintain 
institutions  that  put  the  many  at  the  mercy  of  the  few; 
the  operation  of  wisdom  is  to  create  institutions  that 
attain  justice  or  a  greater  measure  of  equality  for  all. 

As,  however,  wisdom  has  played  a  subsidiary  and 
only  spasmodic  part  in  the  history  of  the  world,  our 
institutions  are  principally  due  to  the  operation  of  the 
craft  of  the  few  and  the  folly  of  the  many.  The  result 
of  this  is  that  while  the  few  are  protected  from  some  of 
the  inequalities  of  nature,  the  many  have  new  inequali- 
ties thrust  upon  them. 

The  new  inequalities  thrust  upon  the  many  by  the 
institutions  prompted  by  craft  and  folly  mainly  result 
from  the  institution  of  private  property. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  institution  of 
private  property  is  one  with  which  man  could  have  dis- 
pensed ;  on  the  contrary,  it  constituted  a  phase  through 
which  man  had  to  pass.  It  has  its  foundation  in  the 
law  of  nature;  for  we  find  the  fundamental  notion  of 
private  property  of  one  man  in  another  in  the  slavery 
which  we  know  to  exist  in  communities  of  ants ;  it  may 
be  traced  again  in  the  sense  of  property  which  the  male 
has  in  the  female,  and  which  developed  into  one  of  our 
most  useful  institutions,  —  marriage.  The  notion  of 
private  property  we  find  as  a  necessary  outgrowth  of 
primitive  religion.     Upon  these  three  notions  —  prop- 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  445 

erty,  marriage,  and  religion  —  is  built  the  patriarchal 
system,  which  was  found  ultimately  more  fitted  than 
the  horde  system  (which  it  supplanted)  to  furnish  the 
stimulus  for  industry  indispensable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  civilisation.  It  was  to  protect  private  property 
as  well  as  to  secure  life  and  limb  that  the  patriarchal 
system  yielded  to  the  City  State;  it  was  through  the 
accumulation  of  private  property  that  the  aristocracy 
of  birth,  to  which  the  patriarchal  system  slowly  gave 
rise,  yielded  its  privileges  to  the  people ;  it  was  there- 
fore through  the  system  of  private  property  that  oli- 
garchies became  converted  into  democracies,  and  it  is 
through  the  wealth  accumulated  under  the  system  of 
private  property,  and  the  civilisation  built  upon  the 
system  of  private  property,  that  democracy  may  ulti- 
mately be  replaced  by  collectivism. 

For  political  economy  is  at  last,  in  its  very  effort  to 
explain  the  beauties  of  the  industrial  system,  laying 
bare  the  selfishness  which  lies  at  the  root  of  it,  and  the 
wastefulness  and  degeneration  to  which  it  gives  rise. 

As  our  knowledge  increases,  it  becomes  clear  that 
selfishness  is  not  productive  of  happiness,  even  to  the 
most  successful  few ;  that  the  unconscious  growth  that 
characterises  organisms  ends  in  decay,  whereas  the  de- 
liberate development  that  characterises  wisdom  need  not 
end  in  deca3\  For  a  clear  understanding  of  what  justice 
is  will  permit  us,  through  wisdom,  not  only  further  to 
diminish  the  inequality  and  injustice  that  characterise 
nature,  but  also  to  eliminate  those  which  human  craft 
and  human  folly  have  added  to  her. 

We  are  led  by  these  considerations  to  a  clear  idea  of 
human  government.  All  societies  we  have  seen  to  be 
governed  by  some  law,  and  this  law,  roughly,  is  the 
result  of  the  combination  through  which  weak  individ- 
uals seek  to  protect  themselves  against  the  strong.     The 


446  COLLECTIVISM 

law  which  governs  societies  of  animals  other  than  man 
is  natural  law;  the  law  which  governs  man  is  not  the 
law  of  nature  alone,  but  the  law  of  nature  modified  by 
man ;  the  modifications  brought  by  man  to  the  law  of 
nature  are  those  which  result  from  his  struggle  with  the 
inequality  and  injustice  of  nature.  The  government 
of  human  societies,  therefore,  differs  from  the  govern- 
ment of  animals  other  than  man  in  that  it  partly  con- 
sists of  a  conscious  construction  of  institutions  for  the 
deliberate  purpose  of  attaining  justice  in  the  protection 
of  the  individual  as  well  as  the  community,  and,  as  such, 
is,  in  a  sense,  opposite  to  the  unconscious  growth  of  the 
environment  that  has  an  indeliberate  tendency  to  perpe- 
trate injustice  by  sacrificing  the  individual  to  the  com- 
munity.    Or  it  may  be  expressed  as  follows :  — 

Government  substitutes  for  the  law  of  nature  alone, 
which  sacrifices  the  individual  to  the  community,  the 
law  of  nature  modified  by  human  wisdom,  which  seeks 
to  protect  the  individual  as  well  as  the  community ;  full 
recognition  being  given  to  the  fact  that  man  is  subject 
to  the  law  of  nature,  and  that  it  is  by  modifying  this 
law  that  human  conditions  can  be  improved,  and  not 
by  ignoring  it. 

The  main  purpose  of  government  is  to  create  institu- 
tions which  will  to  the  utmost  possible  produce  equal 
happiness  for  all,  greatest  in  amount  and  best  in  kind. 
A  study  of  human  history  demonstrates  the  fact  that 
human  happiness  has  been  advanced  by  what  we  call 
noble  types  of  men,  and  has  been,  on  the  contrary, 
diminished  by  what  we  call  base  types  of  men.i  We 
therefore  cannot  disregard   the  fact  that  certain  insti- 

1  By  noble  t_ype  is  meant  the  type  that  seeks  happiness  through  the 
happiness  of  others ;  by  base  type  is  meant  the  type  that  seeks  happiness 
regardless  of  the  happiness  of  others. 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  447 

tutions  tend  to  improve  the  type  which  conduces  to  hap- 
piness, while  otiier  institutions  tend  to  degrade  the 
type,  leading  by  such  degradation  to  unhappiness.  All 
efforts,  then,  to  secure  happiness  for  humanity,  without 
takingr  account  of  the  effect  which  institutions  have  on 
type,  are  likely  to  prove  futile.  It  becomes,  therefore, 
an  important  duty  for  government  to  create  an  environ- 
ment that  will  tend  to  produce  a  noble  rather  than  a  base 
type.  It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  the  first  test  of 
human  institutions  is  whether  or  not  they  will  tend  to 
produce  a  noble  or  a  base  type.  When  we  applied  this 
test  to  the  competitive  system  we  found  that  while  in 
one  respect  it  tends  to  stimulate  intelligence,  in  another 
respect  it  tends  to  diminish  it ;  for  although  it  stimulates 
intelligence  in  the  few  who  are  already  intelligent,  it 
tends  to  render  these  few  infertile,  whereas  by  with- 
drawing hope  —  and  therefore  an  incentive  to  prudence 
—  from  the  least  intelligent,  it  promotes  the  fertility  of 
the  lowest  types.  Poverty  and  the  poorhouse  are  the 
alternative  to  success.  The  fear  of  these  drive  men  to 
efforts  which  exhaust,  and  occasion  perpetual  worry; 
these  lead  to  alcoholism,  and  alcoholism  leads  to  pau- 
perism and  crime.  The  competitive  system,  therefore, 
tends  rather  to  degenerate  type  than  to  improve  it. 

The  question  arises,  however,  how  we  can  eliminate 
the  competitive  system  without  exposing  humanity  to 
corresponding  evils.  We  have  seen  the  unwisdom  of 
forgetting  that  men  are  organisms  and  not  machines; 
they  cannot  be  dealt  with,  therefore,  without  remem- 
bering that  they  remain  subject  to  natural  law.  In 
studying,  therefore,  the  possibility  of  replacing  the 
competitive  system  by  some  other,  we  have  to  ask  our- 
selves what  are  the  objections  imposed  by  nature  to  such 
a  change,  and  we  have  in  this  respect  to  remember,  first, 
that  man  is  by  nature  so  constituted  that  he  must  in  his 


448  COLLECTIVISM 

political  system,  however  organised,  satisfy  his  natural 
needs.  Secondly,  he  is  the  creature  of  comxDetition  as 
much  as  of  co-operation,  and  partakes,  therefore,  of  the 
selfish  nature  of  the  carnivora  as  well  as  of  the  social 
nature  of  the  ant.  Thirdly,  he  must  not  in  any  change 
proposed  be  subjected  to  conditions  that  will  destroy 
variability.  Fourthly,  it  must  be  remembered  that  organ- 
isms cannot  be  subjected  to  sudden  changes.  In  other 
words,  man  is  an  organism,  and  selfish  as  well  as  social 
in  temperament;  he  is  not  adaptable  to  sudden  changes, 
and  uniformity  would  put  an  end  to  his  improvement. 

But  it  has  been  seen  that  the  law  of  nature  cannot 
be  set  up  as  an  argument  against  co-operation,  because 
nature  herself  has  used  the  method  of  co-operation  to 
produce  an  insect  which  by  this  means  has  become  the 
terror  of  a  continent.  But  it  is  also  true  that  she  has 
done  so  by  the  adoption  of  a  plan  which  sacrifices  the 
individual  to  the  community,  and  one  sex  to  the  other. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  grapple  with  the  j3roblem 
whether  we  can  borrow  the  co-operative  plan  adopted 
by  nature,  and  combine  it  with  the  competitive  plan  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  community  serviceable  to 
the  individual,  and  make  it  possible  for  both  sexes  to 
live  in  harmony  therein,  without  forgetting  the  four 
limitations  to  which  we  have  referred. 

It  is  submitted,  first,  that  through  self-control  the  prob- 
lem of  the  sexes  has  already  been  partly  solved  by  the 
institution  of  marriage;  secondly,  that  the  only  way  of 
satisfying  reason  and  morality  is  through  the  adoption 
of  institutions  by  which  the  satisfaction  of  human  needs 
and  the  pursuit  of  human  happiness  can  be  attained 
through  the  happiness  of  others  instead  of  at  the  ex- 
pense of  others,  thereby  borrowing  from  nature  its  i)rin- 
ciple  of  co-operation;  thirdly,  that  no  political  institu- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  449 

tions  can  eliminate  the  struggle  arising  from  differences 
of  personal  attractiveness,  and  that,  therefore,  this  ele- 
ment of  human  unhappiness  cannot  be  eliminated  by 
political  institutions,  even  if  such  an  elimination  were 
desirable ;  fourthly,  that  ample  room  must  be  left  under 
such  a  system  for  competition  in  connection  with  the 
natural  desire  men  have  in  common  with  other  animals 
for  affection,  and  for  consideration,  which  is  allied  to 
affection;  fifthly,  that  the  competition  which  will  arise 
from  this  source,  though  it  will  necessarily  give  rise  to 
some  unhappiness,  will  maintain  a  sufficient  struggle  to 
prevent  uniformity;  sixthly,  and  lastly,  that,  the  vari- 
ability of  the  race  being  preserved  by  this  struggle,  its 
inadaptability  to  sudden  changes  must  also  be  taken 
account  of  by  making  this  change  slowly,  in  proportion 
as  the  improvement  of  type  permits. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  the  proposed  system  of  col- 
lectivism satisfies  the  conditions  just  set  forth,  and 
to  this  end  let  us  study  collectivism,  first,  from  the 
rational  point  of  view;  secondly,  from  the  practical 
point  of  view;  thirdly,  from  the  prudential  point  of 
view;  fourthly,  from  the  moral  point  of  view;  and 
fifthly,  from  the  political  point  of  view. 


§  1.   Rational  View  op  Collectivism 

Our  mental  habits  have  become  anchylosed  into  the 
conviction  that  the  only  desirable  thing  in  the  world  is 
money;  whereas  the  really  desirable  things  in  it  are  our 
own  comfort  and  the  affection  and  consideration  of 
others.  We  really  value  money  only  because  it  can 
procure  for  us  these  last;  but  we  have  lost  sight  of  our 
real  ends  in  our  perpetual  effort  to  secure  the  means. 

The  tendency  to  confound  means  with  ends  is  observ- 

29 


450  COLLECTIVISM 

able  in  many  other  fields  of  action,  and  is  extremely 
serviceable,  for  upon  it  is  often  founded  our  most 
valuable  arts.  The  object  of  rowing  is  to  transport  men 
and  things  over  water;  but  this  object  is  totally  lost 
sight  of  in  the  art  of  rowing,  which,  for  the  purpose  of 
cultivating  the  art,  resorts  to  boats  totally  unsuited  to 
the  end  of  transportation.  A  principal  object  of  study- 
ing history  is  to  get  light  from  the  failures  and  successes 
of  human  institutions  in  the  past  upon  the  framing  of 
institutions  for  the  future;  but  it  is  found  that  men 
who  study  history  in  order  to  bolster  a  particular  theory 
are  apt  to  distort  historical  facts  in  order  to  fit  their 
views ;  and  so  it  has  become  useful  to  profit  by  the  dis- 
position to  substitute  means  for  ends,  and  to  encourage 
the  study  of  history  for  its  own  sake.  The  study  of 
history,  therefore,  has  become  separated  from  that  of 
politics,  which  it  is  intended  ultimately  to  serve,  with 
profit  to  both;  for  we  get  better  history,  and  from  a 
more  truthful  history  we  ought  eventually  to  get  less 
unwise  politics.  Again,  the  chisel  and  brush,  originally 
used  as  a  vehicle  of  expression,  religious  and  other,  have 
now  become  an  end  in  themselves;  and  we  therefore 
hear  artists  repudiating  the  theory  that  art  is  a  vehicle 
of  expression,  and  demanding  that  it  be  cultivated  for  its 
own  sake ;  and  one  of  the  results  of  this  view  is  that  we 
get  art  purged  of  literature  and  restored  to  the  simplicity 
and  singleness  of  j)urpose  which  characterise  the  works 
of  Michael  Angelo  and  Praxiteles. 

Art  gains  by  the  doctrine  that  it  is  an  end  in  itself 
through  the  sincerity  that  this  doctrine  engenders ;  but 
in  gaining  sincerity  it  tends  to  lose  sight  of  its  original 
purpose,  so  that  while  we  make  skilful  oarsmen  on  still 
water,  we  lose  skilful  oarsmen  on  rough ;  while  we  gain 
truthful  recorders  of  past  events,  we  tend  to  lose  intel- 
ligent  application    of   lessons    to   be    drawn  from  past 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  451 

events  to  the  present;  while  in  art  we  gain  sincerity  of 
technique,  we  tend  to  lose  genius  of  conception. 

Ultimately,  however,  the  benefit  outweighs  the  loss ; 
for  there  arise  new  men  who  use  the  faithful  history 
of  the  purely  historic  school  and  the  sincere  technique 
of  the  purely  artistic  school,  and  apply  the  one  to  the 
foundation  of  wiser  institutions,  the  other  to  the  crea- 
tion of  loftier  works  of  art. 

Something  of  this  kind  may  yet  take  place  in  the 
present  disordered  attitude  of  our  minds  toward  wealth. 
We  have  lost  sight  of  the  real  purpose  of  our  lives  —  hap- 
piness—  in  the  pursuit  of  the  means  for  attaining  it, 
wealth.  As  a  result  of  this  unfortunate  delusion  the 
whole  human  race  has  been  set  upon  a  relentless  pursuit 
of  riches,  in  the  course  of  which,  although  they  have 
forgotten  the  real  object  of  their  endeavours,  they  have 
acquired  an  amazing  ability  for  acquiring,  creating,  and 
accumulating  all  those  things  which  go  to  make  up 
comfort  and  happiness.  It  is  probable  that  in  no  other 
way  could  this  ability  have  been  attained;  at  any  rate 
the  human  race  is  to-day  the  richer  for  having  attained 
it,  but  it  is  none  the  more  happy  for  it;  on  the  con- 
trary the  race  is  kept  in  misery  by  a  system  for  creat- 
ing wealth  which  deprives  the  larger  part  of  the 
comforts  of  life  in  order  to  sicken  the  lesser  part  with 
surfeit  of  them.  It  is  like  a  hypnotic  subject  pursuing 
its  own  unhappiness  under  the  domination  of  a  false 
suggestion.  Is  it  possible  for  us  to  arouse  ourselves 
from  this  hypnotic  sleep,  to  rid  ourselves  of  this  false 
suggestion,  and  awake  to  the  facts  that  it  is  not  private 
wealth  we  really  need,  but  the  comfort,  the  considera- 
tion, and  the  love  that  private  wealth  may  promise,  but 
seldom  if  ever  bestows ;  that  private  property  has  only 
served  the  purpose  of  all  pain  to  inform  us  how  we  can 
use  our  gifts  without  abusing  them;  that  we  have  re- 


452  COLLECTIVISM 

fused  so  far  to  learn  our  lesson  because  our  minds  have 
been  clouded  by  error  and  our  hearts  sickened  by  fear; 
that  just  as  the  genius  of  art  borrows  the  technique  of 
those  who  have  laboured  in  sincerity,  so  the  genius  of 
wisdom  may  borrow  the  wealth  of  those  who  have 
laboured  in  pain;  and  that  the  faculty  of  acquiring 
wealth  that  has  been  attained  through  the  injustice  of 
the  competitive  system  may  be  utilised  to  attain  the  jus- 
tice of  collectivism? 

If  all  human  effort  and  human  morality  can  be 
reduced  to  the  effort  to  secure  the  highest  type  of  human 
happiness,  and  if  we  are  persuaded  that  private  owner- 
ship of  the  sources  of  production,  though  necessary  as  a 
stage  through  which  humanity  had  to  pass  in  its  search 
of  happiness,  is,  nevertheless,  now  clearly  seen  by 
human  wisdom  to  be  a  source  of  unhappiness,  then 
assuredly  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  propose  that  humanity 
should,  in  the  framing  of  its  political  institutions,  look 
to  a  slow  abandonment  of  private  ownership  of  the 
sources  of  production  and  the  substitution  therefor  of 
property  in  the  State,  it  being  understood  that  such  a 
change  can  be  effected  only  by  steps  taken  slowly  and 
conformably  to  improvement  in  type. 


§  2.   Practical  View  of  Collectivism 

It  has  been  urged  that  collectivism  is  not  practical ; 
indeed,  books  have  been  written  to  prove  that  it  is  im- 
possible. To  this  objection  there  are  several  answers. 
In  the  first  place,  no  great  work  was  ever  proposed  but 
so-called  practical  men  denounced  it  as  impossible. 
All  the  engineers  in  England  without  a  dissenting  voice 
declared  the  Suez  Canal  impossible.  Thiers,  after  per- 
sonally examining  the  first  railroad  in  England,  decided 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  453 

with  unfaltering  self-satisfaction  that  railroads  were 
"not  suited  to  France."  When  a  few  young  men,  in 
1891,  proposed  a  permanent  organisation  of  citizens  in 
New  York  against  misgovernment,  permanent  organisa- 
tion to  this  end  was  denounced  by  practical  politicians  as 
impossible.  Indeed,  everything  that  is  very  useful  and 
a  little  difficult  appears  to  those  who  have  not  enough 
imagination  to  see  its  feasibility  to  be  impossible. 

And  everything  that  is  at  all  worth  while  doing  is 
difficult.  Indeed,  if  it  is  worth  doing,  it  must  be  diffi- 
cult, or  it  would  have  been  done  before.  The  mere  fact 
that  collectivism  seems  impossible  to  many  is  no  argu- 
ment against  it;  experience  has  proved  over  and  over 
again  that  what  seems  impossible  to  one  generation  is 
achieved  by  the  next.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
would  not  the  wise  and  ignorant  alike  have  declared 
railroads  impossible  ?  And  what  would  they  have  said 
only  fifty  years  ago  of  telegraphs  and  telephones  and 
Rontgen  rays  ? 

In  the  second  place,  collectivism  is  doubtless  not 
practical  to-day ;  but  this  is  no  reason  for  believing  that 
it  may  not  become  practical  —  nay,  imperative —  later  on. 
As  has  been  already  explained,  we  are  too  ignorant  — 
both  rich  and  poor  —  to  accept  collectivism  or  adequately 
practise  it ;  the  rich  would  not  without  a  struggle  give 
up  what  they  have,  because  their  imaginations  do  not 
seem  able  to  grasp  the  relief  from  anxiety  that  they 
would  get  in  exchange ;  the  poor  would  not  be  content 
with  what  they  would  get  because  they  expect  more  than 
any  intelligent  or  maintainable  system  of  collectivism 
could  give  them.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  have 
sufficiently  studied  the  subject  to  effect  the  change 
without  danger  of  shipwreck  in  the  process ;  it  is  only 
through  a  long  system  of  education  by  experience  that 
the  community  can  be  made  fit  for  it. 


454  COLLECTIVISM 

It  is  conceivable  that  a  popular  revolt  might  bring  to 
the  front  a  man  who  was  a  Napoleon  for  organisation 
and  a  Washington  for  self-restraint;  and  that  in  the 
hands  of  such  a  man  the  revolution  might  be  effected 
rapidly  without  danger  to  civilisation.  But  it  is  ex- 
tremely unlikely  that  any  form  of  collectivism  adopted 
suddenly  through  the  genius  of  a  single  man  could  be 
permanent;  the  moment  his  hold  weakened  with  age  or 
was  withdrawn  by  death,  the  unfitness  of  the  community 
for  so  advanced  a  condition  of  civilisation  would  express 
itself  in  dissatisfaction  and  revolt;  the  crafty  would 
profit  by  them  to  secure  the  reins  of  government  and 
direct  it  for  their  own  advantage ;  this  would  speedily 
restore  existing  conditions,  and  the  failure  of  a  prema- 
ture experiment  would  disproportionately  retard  its  ulti- 
mate success. 

But  this  is  no  argument  against  recognising  at  once 
that  a  more  or  less  partial  collectivism  is  the  form  of 
government  towards  which  we  should  direct  our  efforts ; 
for  every  day  that  we  postpone  such  efforts  we  increase 
the  danger  of  a  premature  and,  therefore,  ruinous 
attempt  at  it ;  whereas  if  we  at  once  take  steps  to  bring 
about  gradually  what  will  otherwise  happen  cataclysmi- 
cally,  we  may  avoid  the  ruin  that  such  a  calamity  would 
involve. 

In  the  third  place,  this  book  is  not  written  for  the 
purpose  of  showing  that  collectivism  is  practical;  it  is 
Avritten  for  the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  it  is  de- 
sirable; and,  above  all,  that  there  is  in  science  not  only 
no  argument  against  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  powerful 
argument  in  its  favour.  Moreover,  in  this  connection, 
the  distinction  made  in  the  Preface  between  collectivism 
as  an  ideal  or  end,  and  collectivism  as  a  method  or  pro- 
gramme, must  be  carefully  kept  in  mind.  The  extent 
to  which  collectivism  can  be  adopted  depends  upon  the 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  455 

perfectibility  of  man;  how  far  man  is  perfectible  is 
to-day  a  matter  of  pure  speculation;  whatever  be  our 
opinion  regarding  the  degree  to  which  man  is  perfec- 
tible, there  is  an  important  difference  between  the 
opinion  that  man  is  capable  of  perfection  and  the  opinion 
that  man  is  capable  of  improvement;  the  extent  of  man's 
perfectibility  is  a  matter  of  speculation ;  the  capability 
of  man  for  improvement  is  a  matter  of  faith.  An  effort 
will  be  made  in  the  next  section  to  demonstrate  that 
the  belief  in  the  capacity  of  man  for  improvement  is 
a  duty;  and  if  it  be  a  duty,  then  it  becomes  a  duty 
also  to  study  in  what  direction  this  capacity  for  im- 
provement lies.  Collectivism,  whether  as  a  method 
in  economics,  or  as  a  programme  in  politics,  or  as  a 
creed  in  religion,  has  been  presented  as  furnish- 
ing the  direction  towards  which  human  improvement 
lies. 

Again,  however  impractical  ideal  collectivism  may  be, 
there  is  a  stage  in  the  progress  towards  it,  called  partial 
collectivism,  which  is  not  impractical ;  and  the  fact  that 
partial  collectivism  suggests  a  solution  to  the  problem 
presented  by  pauperism  and  prostitution,  and  in  great 
part  also  by  crime,  suggests  that  intelligent  efforts  could 
and  should  be  made  at  once  gradually  to  fit  us  for  it. 
It  is  true  that  it  may  take  centuries  to  accomplish  this ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  some  solution  of  existing  prob- 
lems may  be  forced  upon  us  before  we  are  prepared  for 
it ;  and  it  is  our  immediate  duty  to  decide  what  steps 
can  usefully  be  taken  at  once  to  forestall  a  possible  ex- 
periment that  would  be  dangerously  premature.  I  shall 
therefore  here  confine  myself  to  the  expression  of  the 
belief  that  a  political  programme  looking  towards  the 
slow  adoption  of  collectivism  is  to-day  not  only  practical 
but  imperative;  and  that  if  such  a  programme  be  not 
pursued  we  shall  witness  an  effort  to  impose  upon  us 


456  COLLECTIVISM 

one  that  will  be  neither  conceived  with  wisdom  nor 
executed  with  moderation. 

We  are  confronted  with  very  much  the  same  condi- 
tions as  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. There  was  a  tension  then  in  the  relations  of 
the  Crown  to  the  bourgeoisie  which  is  no  greater  than 
that  which  exists  to-day  in  those  of  capital  to  labour. 
Capital,  in  intrenching  itself  behind  trusts,  and  labour, 
in  fortifying  itself  within  trade  unions,  have  respectively 
separated  themselves  from  that  neutral  part  of  the  com- 
munity which  under  less  organised  conditions  leavens 
the  mass;  the  combatants  are  not  only  separated  and 
singled  out,  but  they  are  unconsciously  urging  one 
another  on  to  battle ;  capital  blinds  itself  to  the  rights 
of  labour;  labour  blinds  itself  to  the  limitations  of  cap- 
ital ;  and  both,  ignoring  their  respective  strength  as  well 
as  their  respective  weakness,  are  preparing  to  strangle 
each  other. 

If  there  be  in  the  community  wisdom  and  temperance 
enough  to  establish  a  modus  vivendi  pending  the  slow 
adoption  of  institutions  which  will  substitute  co-opera- 
tion for  the  present  animosity,  a  revolution  may  be 
avoided ;  such  is  the  character  which  any  practical  pro- 
gramme should  adopt.  If  none  such  is  presented  while 
capital  and  labour  are  struggling  for  the  control  of  the 
ship,  she  may  be  driven  on  the  rocks. 

This  is  the  alternative;  under  these  conditions  is  it 
the  time  to  ask  whether  collectivism  is  practical  ?  As 
well  might  Charles  I.  or  Louis  XVI.  have  asked  if  a 
constitutional  monarchy  were  practical.  We  are  not 
confronted  with  the  question  whether  it  is  practical,  but 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  imminent.  What  we  have  to  de- 
cide is  whether  it  shall  bring  with  it  "  airs  from  heaven 
or  blasts  from  hell;  "  whether  it  shall  find  us  prepared 
or  unprepared. 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  457 

But  collectivism  is  not  the  insane  dream  which  most 
people  think  it  is.  The  wastefulness  of  the  existing  sys- 
tem in  money,  labour,  and  agony  has  not  yet  become  obvi- 
ous to  the  practical  man,  who  has  through  thousands 
of  years  been  educated  to  believe  that  it  is  not  only 
necessary,  but,  because  necessary,  right.  When  his 
eyes  become  opened  to  the  economy  of  money,  of  labour, 
and  of  pain  that  would  result  from  a  conservative  system 
of  collectivism,  he  will  wonder  that  the  difBculties  in 
the  way  of  it  ever  seemed  to  him  worth  taking  account 
of  by  the  side  of  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  it ;  and 
although  he  may  still  recognise  the  unwisdom  of  an 
attempt  to  foist  collectivism  on  a  people  not  yet  fitted  by 
knowledge  and  self-control  for  it,  he  will  strain  every 
nerve,  by  education  and  by  slow  changes  in  our  rules  of 
government,  to  make  them  fit  for  it.  And  in  the  effort 
no  consideration  of  time  will  have  any  importance  for 
him.  It  took  Islam  eight  hundred  years  to  march  from 
Mecca  to  Byzantium,  and  in  this  march  the  life  of  no 
one  man  counted  for  anything.  There  was  in  the  ranks 
of  Mohammed  a  sense  of  fate  that  urged  them  on  re- 
gardless of  so  small  a  span  as  a  day,  a  year,  or  a  cen- 
tury; huge  castles  and  cities  arose  wherever  the  Moslem 
host  rested  on  its  way;  springing  up  as  it  arrived,  per- 
ishing as  it  moved  on ;  and  vast  ruins  to-day  serve  as 
footprints  to  mark  its  giant  strides.  Such  was  the  force 
of  a  mere  idea. 

And  if  so  narrow  and  selfish  an  idea  as  that  of  the 
subjugation  of  a  capital  could  relentlessly  move  gener- 
ation after  generation  of  men  to  the  accomplishment 
of  its  end,  how  much  more  could  it  accomplish  were 
the  idea  one  that  looked  not  to  the  conquest  of  a 
city  for  a  tribe,  but  to  the  realisation  of  an  ideal  for 
the  whole  world. 

And  the  task  is  not  so  difficult  or  so  revolutionary  as 


458  COLLECTIVISM 

may  at  first  appear;  for  although  we  all  of  us  are, 
and  for  centuries  have  been,  committed  by  commercial- 
ism to  a  struggle  for  loaves  and  fishes,  nevertheless 
our  arts,  sculpture,  music,  literature,  betray  the  fact 
that  what  we  really  aspire  to  is  the  heroic  and  the 
beautiful. 

I  have  seen  a  New  York  private  detective,  whose 
business  it  was,  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  to  hound  his  fel- 
low men,  forget  the  business  which  brought  him  to  Paris 
as  he  stood  lost  in  bewildered  admiration  at  the  beauty 
of  Notre  Dame.  And  yet  the  cathedral  that  overcame 
this  human  sleuth-hound  is  a  symbol  of  sacrifice:  its 
gothic  arches;  the  dim  light  of  its  stained  glass;  its 
lofty  pillars  and  fretted  vault ;  the  scheme  of  the  cross 
upon  which  it  is  built,  — all  tell  the  same  story.  What- 
ever beauty  it  has,  whatever  message  it  bears,  is  a  beauty 
and  message  of  sacrifice. 

Again,  of  all  cities  in  the  world  Paris  is  the  one  in 
which  material  things,  perhaps,  engross  most  the  minds 
of  its  inhabitants;  and  yet  all  Paris  for  months 
flocked  to  "Cyrano  de  Bergerac  "  because  in  him  are 
united  courage,  strength,  and  the  nobility  of  a  great 
sacrifice. 

We  are  not  as  sordid  as  we  seem.  The  passages  in 
history  and  literature  to  which  we  thrill  tell  of  those 
who  died  for  their  country  and  of  men  and  women  who 
have  suffered  for  one  another;  the  great  works  of  art 
that  adorn  the  walls  of  the  Sixtine  Chapel  or  were  des- 
tined for  the  tomb  of  Julius  II.  set  up  ideals  before 
which  we  stand  awed  because  they  embody  the  beauty 
of  self-sacrifice  and  self-control.  These  are  the  things 
we  really  love,  and  the  ideals  to  which  we  really  aspire. 
We  hourly  sacrifice  them  because  thousands  of  years  of 
competition  have  closed  our  eyes  to  the  possibility  of 
abolishing  it. 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  459 

But  our  eyes  will  be  opened ;  it  may  take  centuries  of 
pain ;  we  may  have  to  pass  through  revolutions  so  long, 
so  universal,  so  bloody,  that  by  the  side  of  them  the 
horrors  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  will  seem  the  momentary 
triumph  of  a  local  mob;  it  may  be  that  the  whole  race 
may  perish  in  the  conflict;  but  if  it  survives,  it  can  only 
do  so  on  the  condition  of  at  last  learning  the  lesson  that 
the  multitude  which  all  these  years  has  been  docile  to 
the  domination  of  a  crafty  few  has  at  last  acquired  or 
is  surely  acquiring  enough  intelligence  and  enough 
education  either  to  possess  itself  of  its  share  in  the  good 
things  of  the  world  or  to  destroy  the  whole  system 
which  deprives  them  of  it. 

In  the  struggle  which  is  impending,  every  man  and 
woman  has  to  decide  what  part  he  or  she  is  to  play  in 
it.  Shall  the  educated  class,  with  wisdom  and  temper- 
ance, so  lead  the  movement  that  the  revolution  may  take 
place  slowly  and  imperceptibly,  as  once  in  England,  or 
violently  and  with  bloodshed,  as  in  France  ?  Shall  our 
civilisation  be  exposed  to  the  danger  of  disappearing 
altogether,  as  did  that  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  because 
having  ears  we  hear  not,  and  having  eyes  we  will  not 
see  ?  Or  shall  there  be  revived  once  more  the  faith  that 
for  centuries  followed  Jesus  of  Nazareth  along  the  way 
of  the  cross  ?  This  faith  was  strangled  by  the  alliance 
of  the  Roman  Church  and  Roman  Empire,  and  is  to-day 
strangled  for  every  one  of  us  by  the  attempt  to  reconcile 
the  teaching  of  Christ  with  the  competitive  system.  It 
can  live  once  more  only  on  the  condition  of  abandoning 
this  attempt,  —  not  by  rash  and  revolutionary  changes, 
but  by  prudent  efforts  to  reconcile  our  institutions  with 
our  faith  step  by  step,  as  our  weakness  will  permit, 
rather  than  by  leaps  and  bounds,  as  enthusiasm  might 
prefer. 

There  is  more    virtue  in  the  self-restraint  that  will 


460  COLLECTIVISM 

consent  to  undertake  this  work  gradually  than  in  the 
zeal  that  would  work  to  accomplish  it  at  once ;  for  we 
shall  not  live  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  our  labour  in  the 
one  case,  and  we  are  perhaps  inspired  by  the  hope  of 
enjoying  them  in  the  other. 

We  cannot  hope  that  our  consciences  can  rest  until 
the  perpetual  conflict  between  profession  and  practice 
comes  to  an  end.  It  can  end  only  when  we  make  up 
our  minds  that  we  can  abolish  the  reign  of  egotism  in 
our  hearts  only  by  abolishing  it  in  our  institutions. 

Collectivism  is  founded  upon  the  theory  that  selfish- 
ness, hatred,  and  violence  are  immoral.  It  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  sort  of  political  religion.  It  is  therefore 
to  those  who  are  earnestly  desirous  of  seeing  morality 
prevail  in  the  world  that  the  task  of  introducing  collec- 
tivism into  it  should  be  intrusted.  By  this  it  is  not 
meant  to  imply  that  there  is  any  particular  class  in  our 
existing  community  better  fitted  than  any  other  class 
for  this  work.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  believed  that  the 
work  can  be  successfully  accomplished  only  through 
the  good  element  which  exists  in  all  existing  classes. 
The  danger,  however,  which  threatens  us  is  that  the  task 
of  introducing  collectivism  into  our  society  is  likely  to 
be  taken  up,  not  by  those  who  are  anxious  to  see  unsel- 
fishness, love,  and  peace  prevail  in  the  world,  but  by 
those  who,  incensed  by  the  injustice  of  existing  condi- 
tions, discontented  with  their  own  lot  and  inflamed  by 
vindictiveness,  are  likely  to  attempt  by  violence  what 
can  be  successfully  accomplished  only  by  persuasion. 

"We  have  already  seen  that  every  effort  made  by 
humanity  in  the  direction  of  a  high  ideal,  whether  it 
took  tlie  form  of  Christianity,  or  jVIohammedanisra,  or 
the  Crusades,  or  Chivalry,  served  ultimately  only  to 
secure  the  ends  of  selfishness.     If  the  task,  then,  of  in- 


SUIVIMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  461 

trodiicing  collectivism  into  our  civilisation  is  to  be  sur- 
rendered to  those  who  are  animated  only  by  selfishness, 
it  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  whole  history  of  man 
that  such  an  effort  should  succeed. 

Prudence,  therefore,  suggests  the  importance  of  at 
once  drawing  up  a  political  programme  which  will  give 
to  those  who  suffer  from  the  existing  conditions  all  the 
satisfaction  which  existing  conditions  will  afford;  but 
this  should  be  done,  not  from  a  purely  prudential  mo- 
tive, not  merely  to  save  ourselves  from  revolution,  but 
in  order  ultimately  to  secure  the  greatest  and  best 
happiness  for  all. 


§  3.   Moral  View  of  Collectivism 

In  the  course  of  this  work  the  word  "morality"  has 
been  used  without  any  attempt  to  define  it.  It  has  been 
assumed  that  we  all  know  what  morality  is.  But  stu- 
dents of  moral  philosophy  are  familiar  with  the  fact  that 
there  is  room  on  this  point  for  profound  differences  of 
opinion.  For  example,  is  morality  the  product  of  the 
blind  and  mechanical  process  of  evolution,  or  does  it 
come  from  God;  is  it  natural  or  supernatural;  is  it 
human  or  divine? 

To  the  scientific  man  —  that  is  to  say,  the  man  who 
confines  his  reasoning  to  physical  facts  alone  —  it  seems 
capable  of  proof  that  morality  is  the  product  of  a  blind 
and  mechanical  process.  Herbert  Spencer  has  shown 
that  morality  arises  out  of  the  extension  of  the  con- 
cern of  the  individual  for  himself  to  that  of  the  indi- 
vidual for  the  female  in  sexual  intercourse ;  of  concern 
for  the  female  to  concern  for  offspring;  of  concern  for 
offspring  to  concern  for  the  family;  of  concern  for 
the  family  to  concern  for  the  tribe ;  of  concern  for  the 


462  COLLECTIVISM 

tribe  to  concern  for  the  nation ;  and  that  our  morality 
is  now  in  process  of  developing  from  concern  for  the 
nation  to  concern  for  the  entire  race.  This  growing 
concern  continues  to  be  selfish;  it  attends  a  growing 
satisfaction,  but  it  represents  a  tendency  to  substitute 
for  satisfaction  of  self  regardless  or  at  the  expense  of 
others,  satisfaction  of  self  through  the  satisfaction  of 
others;  and  the  more  complete  this  substitution,  the 
more  highly  socialised  becomes  man.  It  is  difficult  to 
add  anything  to  the  pages  of  the  "Data  of  Ethics  "  on 
this  subject. 

The  religious,  however,  are  not  satisfied  with  this  ex- 
planation ;  to  them  morality  is  divine ;  it  comes  clothed 
with  a  divine  inspiration;  it  is  because  it  is  so  clothed 
that  it  is  a  law  to  them.  "Science,"  they  say,  "affects 
to  ignore  the  supernatural  on  the  ground  that  nature 
furnishes  a  sufficient  explanation  for  all  authentic  phe- 
nomena without  the  necessity  of  calling  in  a  super- 
natural power;  that  the  observed  sequence  between  cause 
and  effect  furnishes  a  more  certain  guide  for  human 
conduct  than  the  assumptions  of  religion."  But  science 
fails  to  recognise  that  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect 
upon  which  it  so  confidently  builds  is  itself  without  any 
foundation ;  that  it  has  never  explained  the  first  cause 
of  all,  —  tlie  Creator.  And  not  only  has  it  failed  to 
account  for  the  very  beginning  of  all  things,  but  in  the 
development  of  man  which  is  called  evolution  there  are 
great  breaks:  science  has  never  furnished  an  explana- 
tion for  the  appearance  of  life  in  the  world,  for  the 
appearance  of  consciousness  in  it,  or  for  what  Herbert 
Spencer  calls  the  "  Power  which  works  through  evolu- 
tion," and  through  the  operation  of  which,  as  he  has 
shown,  morality  has  been  slowly  developed  in  the  animal 
world  until  it  has  reached  its  highest  development  in 
man.     All  that  science  does  or  can  do  is  to   describe 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  463 

what  happens  and  what  is  the  apparent  law  of  these 
happenings ;  it  is  incapable  of  explaining  what  the  force 
is  which  animates  the  world  or  whence  it  comes. 

It  seems  as  though  there  were  lacunae  in  the  scientific 
argument  against  the  supernatural  which  no  truly  scien- 
tific man  can  afford  to  neglect.  He  can  say  that  science 
will  eventually  explain  them ;  that  it  is  easier  to  believe 
it  will  explain  them  than  to  adopt  the  faith  of  religion, 
which  can  be  often  proved  to  be  the  product  of  igno- 
rance, —  the  ignorance,  for  example,  which  attributes  to 
Providence  what  science  can  show  to  be  due  to  purely 
natural  causes.  But  it  is  when  we  come  to  analyse  these 
words,  "natural  causes,"  that  a  great  part  of  the  confu- 
sion that  presides  over  the  discussion  between  religion 
and  science  become  explained. 

What  are  natural  causes  ? 

What  is  nature  ? 

What  are  its  limits?  What  separates  it  from  the 
divine  ? 

An  answer  to  these  questions  has  been  already  at- 
tempted in  the  first  volume ;  and  the  general  conclusion 
to  which  we  then  came  was  that  there  had  gradually 
developed  in  nature  a  power  which  is  to-day  able  in  great 
part  successfully  to  resist  her.  Science  has  traced  the 
slow  development  of  this  power,  has  described  many  of 
the  physical  laws  through  which  it  works;  but  as  to 
what  the  power  itself  is,  whence  it  comes,  what  gave  the 
bird  the  faculty  to  build  a  nest,  the  bee  to  construct 
a  hive,  the  beaver  a  dam,  and  man  his  ancient  temples 
and  his  modern  homes,  science  offers  no  explanation 
except  that  it  is  due  to  a  combination  of  accident  and 
the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

But  this  theory  of  accident  is  not  insisted  upon  by 
science.  As  regards  all  these  metaphysical  questions, 
it   has    adopted  a  method   for   disarming  its   religious 


464  COLLECTIVISM 

antagonists,  —  the  method  of  agnosticism.  It  assumes 
an  air  of  humility  and  says,  "  There  are  some  things  in 
the  domain  of  the  natural  which  I  do  know,  but  outside 
of  this  domain  —  that  is  to  say,  of  all  that  belongs  to  the 
domain  of  the  supernatural  —  I  know  nothing."  Asa 
strategic  measure  this  attitude  is  undoubtedly  in  part 
successful;  it,  as  it  were,  makes  it  impossible  for  the 
wrestlers  to  close  with  one  another;  but  for  that  reason 
it  must  forever  leave  the  contest  unconcluded. 

It  is  questionable,  however,  whether  the  agnostic  posi- 
tion is  altogether  sincere;  for  science  has  learned,  by 
continually  fighting  the  assumptions  of  religion,  indis- 
criminately to  hate  them  and  to  hate  the  religion  it  holds 
responsible  for  them.  And  so  agnosticism,  which  in 
form  is  a  correct  statement  of  one  of  the  attitudes  of 
science  to  religion,  is  of  chief  use  to  science  in  disguis- 
ing its  real  attitude,  which  is  one  of  denial.  It  has  thus 
become,  like  the  green  lawns  that  drape  our  modern  for- 
tifications, a  screen  behind  which  its  guns  are  masked. 
Religion  is  not  in  this  respect  at  any  rate  so  insincere. 
Religion  boldly  proclaims,  not  less  than  it  knows,  as 
science  does,  but  more  than  it  knows  under  the  author- 
ity of  Revelation.  "God  is  all  good,  all  wise,  all 
powerful.  He  rewards  piety  with  heaven ;  He  punishes 
impiety  with  hell."  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  goes 
farther.  She  professes  to  know  just  what  sins  commit 
sinners  irretrievably  to  eternal  flame,  and  what  are 
expiated  by  a  temporary  punishment  in  a  mitigated  hell, 
which  she  calls  purgatory.  Now,  in  the  court  of  reason, 
the  bishop  who  pretends  to  know  too  much  is  out- 
argued  by  the  sceptic  who  pretends  to  know  too  little ; 
but  the  fact  probably  is  that  both  are  equally  wrong. 
The  bishop  may  have  insufficient  ground  for  his  asser- 
tions, but  the  sceptic  has  still  less  ground  for  his  denial. 
We  do  know  that  a  power  exists  for  which  science  is 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  465 

utterly  unable  to  account;  we  do  know  that  this  power 
has,  in  general  compliance  with  laws  with  which  this 
power  does  not  always  seem  to  comply,  set  in  operation 
a  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  upon  the  certainty  of 
whose  action  we  can  for  the  most  part  count,  but  over 
which  this  power  seems  at  rare  intervals  to  have  kept 
the  masterdom ;  we  do  know  that  as  a  part  of  this  plan 
there  has  been  developed  a  force  in  man  which  is  capa- 
ble of  resisting  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  which 
has  been  called  natural  evolution,  so  that  instead  of 
Nature  being  left  blindly  to  stagger  from  experiment  to 
experiment,  she  may  by  this  new  force  in  man  slowly 
be  led  along  a  consistent  course  of  conscious  and 
deliberate  design. 

It  seems  as  though  science  had  been  led  by  the  vocif- 
erousness  of  her  denials  at  last  to  believe  in  them;  so 
that,  just  as  an  angry  man  feeds  and  inflames  his  anger 
by  the  expression  of  it,  science  has  fed  and  inflamed  her 
scepticism  by  the  clamour  to  which  she  has  been  driven 
in  order  to  drown  the  not  always  unreasonable  conten- 
tions of  her  antagonist. 

No  attempt  will  be  made  here  to  reconcile  the  conflict 
between  religion  and  science ;  this  task  belongs  to  those 
who  write  books  of  religious  controversy ;  and  from  reli- 
gious controversy  we  should,  above  all  things,  keep  our- 
selves clear.  On  the  other  hand,  after  having,  in  com- 
pliance with  the  passion  for  excluding  sentiment  and, 
above  all,  religious  sentiment  from  political  discussion, 
that  characterises  this  century,  treated  morality  as  a 
fact  upon  the  same  plane  as  the  fang  of  the  carnivora  or 
the  social  instinct  of  the  sponge,  it  becomes  necessary, 
before  closing,  to  point  out  that  there  is  between  the  fact 
of  morality  and  the  other  facts  discussed  here  the 
difference  that  separates  man  and  beast.  And,  without 
adopting  all  the  assumptions  of   any   one   creed,  it   is 

30 


466  COLLECTIVISM 

above  all  things  important  to  discard  the  hostility 
towards  faith  which  lurks  behind  the  cloak  of  agnosti- 
cism. The  word  "  faith  "  is  not  used  here  inadvertently ; 
for  although,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  sometimes  used, 
it  may  be  quite  foreign  to  political  science,  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  it  may  become  an  essential  factor  of  it. 
This  ought  to  furnish  a  sufficient  apology  for  introduc- 
ing into  a  work  on  political  science  a  short  discourse  on 
faith. 

(a)  Faith 

Faith  may  be  roughly  defined  to  be  a  willingness  or 
faculty  to  believe  things  that  are  incapable  of  proof. 
Now,  just  as  obedience  to  temporal  rulers  is  enjoined 
upon  us  by  the  Church  in  temporal  matters,  so  obedience 
to  spiritual  rulers  is  enjoined  upon  us  in  spiritual  mat- 
ters ;  and  this  obedience  in  spiritual  matters  practically 
consists  in  a  submission  of  our  minds  to  spiritual  author- 
ity, —  that  is  to  say,  in  a  willingness  to  believe  regard- 
ing spiritual  matters  what  the  Church  or  recognised 
spiritual  authority  tells  us  to  believe. 

It  has  been  elsewhere  pointed  out^  that  obedience, 
which  was  a  cardinal  virtue  under  the  conditions  which 
prevailed  in  the  time  of  Christ,  ceased  to  be  a  virtue 
under  the  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Man  had  grown;  there  was  a  certain  kind  of 
obedience  which  he  had  outgrown;  and  this  kind  of  obe- 
dience gave  way,  therefore,  to  the  "  sacred  right  of  in- 
surrection." Something  of  the  same  kind  took  place 
regarding  faith,  —  the  obedience  to  spiritual  authority 
which  put  the  reins  of  civilisation,  from  the  fourth  to 
the  sixteenth  century,  into  the  hands  of  the  Church, 
diminished  in  proportion  as  the  Church  became  less  fit 

1  "Evolution  and  Effort,"  p.  278. 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  467 

to  hold  them.  So,  in  compliance  with  the  law  that  those 
only  are  allowed  to  govern  who  can,  submission  of  the 
mind  to  spiritual  authority  disappeared  as  soon  as  the 
constituted  authority  became  incapable  any  longer  of 
justifying  itself.  The  Reformation  was  a  revolt  against 
authority ;  and  it  is  of  no  small  interest  to  note  that  the 
first  throne  to  totter  was  that  of  the  Pope.  It  is  amaz- 
ing how  much  and  how  long  men  will  endure  domination 
if  they  get  something  for  it;  it  is  when  they  get  nothing 
for  it  that  they  revolt;  it  was  when  the  people  got  noth- 
ing from  the  king  that  they  revolted  in  1789;  it  was 
when  they  got  nothing  from  the  Pope  that  they  revolted 
in  1525. 

When  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Church  was 
broken  down  in  the  sixteenth  and  ensuing  centuries,  an 
attempt  was  made  to  set  up  another  authority  in  its 
place;  and  the  Bible  for  a  long  time  served  this  pur- 
pose. But  literal  inspiration  of  the  Bible  was  incapa- 
ble of  withstanding  the  onslaught  of  rational  criticism, 
and  when  the  difficulties  attending  the  alternative  be- 
tween literal  inspiration  on  the  one  hand,  and  private 
judgment  on  the  other,  had  become  sufficiently  ob- 
vious, all  attempt  to  believe  things  incapable  of  proof 
was  abandoned  by  science  and  recourse  was  had  to 
agnosticism. 

Now,  throughout  the  early  history  of  faith  the  main 
question  is  one  of  submission  to  authority.  Paul 
preached  this  duty  of  submission  as  the  one  indispens- 
able virtue  necessary  for  salvation;  and  the  Christian 
world  remained  subject  to  this  controlling  thought  until 
the  authority  itself  was  shaken.  With  Protestantism 
and  with  the  setting  up  of  a  book  in  the  place  of  a 
throne,  there  necessarily  came  a  confusion  regarding 
faith  which  was  well-nigh  inextricable.  The  hopeless- 
ness of   reconciling   private    judgment  with    authority 


468  COLLECTIVISM 

made  it  necessary  to  revise  the  very  foundations  that 
underlie  the  meaning  of  the  word  "faith."  There  is  still 
a  thing  we  call  faith ;  but  it  is  no  more  the  faith  which 
Paul  preached  than  electricity  is  to-day  the  amber 
(eXeKTpov)  from  which  it  derives  its  name. 

The  faith  of  which  we  speak  to-day  (though  it  may 
retain  its  original  meaning  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church)  is,  outside  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  no 
longer  a  matter  of  religious  authority ;  it  has  become  one 
of  private  conviction. 

But  if  faith  has  become  purely  a  matter  of  private 
conviction,  it  seems  to  have  lost  the  specific  quality 
which  made  of  it  a  virtue.  In  the  old  days  faith  in- 
volved an  element  of  sacrifice;  it  sacrificed  the  very  con- 
viction which  it  seems  to  be  the  glory  of  modern  faith 
to  encourage  and  proclaim.  The  moment  the  element 
of  sacrifice  and  submission  is  eliminated  from  faith,  it 
apparently  ceases  to  be  a  virtue  and  becomes  an  accident 
of  temperament,  custom,  or  education;  one  fraction  of 
Christendom  is  born  Roman  Catholic  and  remains 
Roman  Catholic;  another  is  born  Baptist  and  remains 
Baptist ;  or,  again,  one  man  temperamentally  a  Romanist 
but  educated  by  Protestants,  as  soon  as  he  is  weaned 
from  educational  influences,  follows  the  dictates  of  his 
temperament  and  joins  the  Catholic  Church;  another, 
temperamentally  a  Protestant  but  educated  by  Catho- 
lics, if  weaned  from  the  Catholic  environment,  joins 
the  Protestant  Church.  Here  there  is  no  element  of 
sacrifice;  on  the  contrary,  the  whole  condition  is  one 
of  surrender,  —  surrender  to  habit  in  the  first  group  of 
cases,  to  temperament  in  the  second. 

It  is  earnestly  submitted  that  conviction  which  is  a 
mere  surrender  to  mental  constitution  or  emotional  tem- 
perament or  habit  is  Tiot  faith.  Faith  involves  the  idea 
of  an  act  of  will  in  obedience  to  what  is  believed  to  be 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  469 

a  religious  or  moral  duty.  Unless  there  be  found  in  a 
man's  attitude  towards  morality  some  element  of  choice, 
—  and  generally  choice  that  involves  some  sacrifice,  — 
his  attitude  cannot  be  characterised  by  the  word  "faith." 
Otherwise  faith  becomes  another  word  for  conviction, 
and  a  very  unnecessary  word  for  it ;  worse,  indeed,  than 
unnecessary,  for  it  is  confusing. 

It  may,  however,  be  urged  that  if  Protestantism  has 
killed  the  authority  of  the  Church,  it  has  killed  faith; 
and  that  no  faith  is  any  longer  possible  in  Christendom 
outside  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  This  is  believed 
to  be  a  profound  mistake.  Faith  is  as  possible  to  the 
man  of  pure  science  as  to  the  most  bigoted  Papist,  and 
it  is  in  the  emphasising  of  this  contention  that  we  ap- 
proach the  value  of  faith  in  matters  of  political  science. 
Hence  the  importance  of  it. 

Of  the  two  theories  presented  to  students  of  science 
regarding  the  problem  of  human  will,  one  declares  man 
to  be  the  slave  of  his  greater  inclination,  and  the  other 
maintains,  on  the  contrary,  that  he  is  master  of  it.  As 
between  these  two  contentions,  logic  seems  to  be  on  the 
side  of  the  determinists ;  but  there  is  an  intermediate 
contention  that  man  can  by  effort  contribute  to  the 
making  of  his  greater  inclination;  and  that  therefore, 
although  the  greater  inclination  once  formed  he  must 
act  in  obedience  to  it,  man  is  nevertheless  master  of 
his  own  conduct  through  the  fact  that  he  is  by  effort 
capable  in  great  part  of  determining  what  his  greater 
inclination  is  to  be. 

Now,  in  this  intermediate  contention  there  is  no  logi- 
cal flaw;  it  is  open  possibly  to  the  objection  that  man's 
inclinations  are  so  much  more  determined  for  him  by  his 
temperament  than  by  any  effort  of  his  own  that  the 
latter  becomes,  by  the  side  of  the  former,  a  negligible 
quantity.     But  this  objection  is  an  argument  of  despair. 


470  COLLECTIVISM 

It  means  that  man  is  incapable  of  self -improvement ;  it 
is  the  last  expression  of  pessimism. 

Now,  of  the  two  doctrines,  the  optimistic  doctrine 
that  man  is  capable  of  self-improvement  and  the  pes- 
simistic doctrine  that  man  is  incapable  of  it,  which  is  he 
to  choose  ?  Is  he  to  surrender  to  the  pessimistic  tem- 
perament in  him,  or  is  he,  on  the  contrary,  to  resist  this 
pessimistic  temperament,  and  by  an  act  of  choice,  or  by 
the  exercise  of  effort,  deliberately  decide  in  favour  of 
self -improvement  ? 

This  is  the  point  at  which,  to  my  mind,  there  is  scope 
for  the  action  of  faith  in  the  truest  sense;  and  here  it 
is  that  the  action  of  faith  can  be  made  serviceable  to 
political  science. 

Not  only  in  questions  of  pure  ethics,  but  also  in  many 
political  problems,  of  two  theories  proposed  one  will  be 
found,  if  adopted,  to  favour  the  social  perfectibility  of 
men,  and  the  other  will  be  found  to  disfavour  it.  In 
both  the  field  of  ethics,  then,  and  in  that  of  political 
science  there  is  in  every  such  case  room  for  an  act  of 
faith ;  in  other  words,  we  can  resist  the  tendency  in  us 
to  adopt  the  theory  which  will  disfavour  social  perfecti- 
bility, and  we  can  by  effort  decide  to  adopt  the  theory 
that  will  favour  such  perfectibility'.  Here,  then,  seems 
to  be  a  shibboleth  by  which  we  can  decide  between 
two  equally  opposed  and  equally  plausible  arguments; 
namely,  which  of  the  two  will  tend  most  to  the 
perfection  of  man  and  incidentally  to  his  highest 
happiness. 

Of  course  many  men  are  constitutionally  optimistic 
and  benevolent;  to  them  such  problems  present  no 
difficulty;  they  will  adopt  the  optimistic  argument  in 
natural  compliance  with  an  optimistic  temperament. 
Others,  again,  are  constitutionally  selfish  beyond  the 
reach  of  argument.     Nothing  is  capable  of  reaching  them 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  471 

but  tribulation,  and  many  are  proof  even  against  this. 
But  there  is  a  large  class  of  political  students  for  whom, 
by  dint  of  reading  such  works  as  those  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, the  native  hue  of  resolution  has  been  sicklied  o'er  by 
the  pale  cast  of  thought;  they  have  been  persuaded  by 
the  determinist  argument;  they  have  not  had  presented 
to  them  the  moral  issue  which  sets  against  the  deter- 
minist argument  another  argument  just  as  logical  and 
possessed  of  the  social  advantage  that  it  militates  in 
favour  of  human  happiness  and  dignity,  whereas  deter- 
minism leads  to  human  unhappiness  and  probable 
degradation. 

One  of  the  principal  purposes  of  this  book  is  to  bring 
compendiously  before  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  facts 
which  go  to  show  that  if  man  is  willing  to  sit  as  a  silent 
spectator  of  the  process  of  evolution,  as  Herbert  Spencer 
seems  in  many  passages  to  recommend,  the  chances  are 
rather  that  he  will  degenerate  than  that  he  will  improve ; 
whereas  if  he  recognises  that  he  has  himself,  by  his  intel- 
ligence and  his  capacity  for  deliberate  effort,  become  the 
principal  factor  in  the  process,  there  is  no  limit  to  his 
perfectibility,  no  limit  to  the  happiness  and  dignity  he 
may  eventually  attain.  Faith,  then,  in  political  science 
is  the  virtue  which  by  effort  adopts  of  two  equally 
plausible  theories  the  one  that  will  advance  the  social 
perfectibility  of  man  rather  than  that  which  will  retard 
it.i 

1  This  brief  sketch  of  faith  has  not  included  the  somewhat  special  con- 
ditions which  result  from  the  attitude  of  the  Anglican  or  Episcopal  Church. 
Like  all  Anglo-Saxon  institutions,  the  English  Church  has  looked  more  to 
the  utility  of  its  creed  than  to  its  consistency  ;  and  because  obedience  to 
the  Church  is  as  valuable  a  \'irtue  to  the  community  as  independence  of 
thought,  she  has  included  them  both,  however  discoi'dant  they  ma}'  some- 
times be.  Thus  she  has  preserved  the  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
her  so-called  doctrine  of  Apostolic  succession,  but  has  kept  clear  of  the 
logical  conclusion  therefrom  which  in  Rome  has  taken  the  shape  of  Papal 
infallibility.     The  fact,  however,  that  the  Anglican  Church  does  not  re- 


472  COLLECTIVISM 

And  now  we  are  in  a  position  to  return  to  the 
question  of  agnosticism.  Have  we  a  right  to  be 
agnostics  ? 

Just  as  private  wealth  is  a  phase  through  which  civil- 
isation has  had  to  pass  in  its  progress  from  property  of 
no  one  individual  in  anything  to  property  of  all  in 
everything,  so  agnosticism  seems  to  be  a  phase  through 
which  the  mind  has  to  pass  in  its  progress  from  the 
religion  of  authority  to  that  of  collectivism. 

When  religion  professed  to  know  more  about  the 
divine  than  it  could  know,  reason  resisted  the  claims  of 
religion  by  denial;  and  when  denial  overstepped  the 
bounds  of  reason  by  denying  more  than  it  need,  reason 
recovered  her  balance  in  agnosticism.  We  know  that 
God  exists,  said  the  Church.  We  know  He  does  not 
exist,  said  the  atheist.  We  don't  know  whether  He 
exists  or  not,  said  the  agnostic. 

It  seems,  however,  that  if  we  are  to  restore  its  virtue 
to  faith  it  is  our  duty  to  know  something  about  Him; 
and  it  seems  demonstrable  also  that  if  the  political 
student  is  really  engaged  in  the  problem  how  social 
conditions  can,  through  the  machinery  of  government, 
be  improved,  it  is  his  duty  to  have  convictions  about  the 
supernatural ;  for  if  the  distinction  that  has  been  made 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  is  correct,  it 
will  be  found  that  it  is  with  the  supernatural  that  the 
political  student  has  most  to  do.  To  this  distinction 
between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  let  us  for  a 
moment  revert. 

In  the  confusion  which  reigns  regarding  the  meaning 

fuse  the  prop  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to  those  who  wash  to  lean  upon  it 
does  not  prevent  her  permittiiifj  large  scope  for  the  play  of  private  judg- 
ment, and  particularly  for  tlie  exercise  of  the  faith  which  in  obedience  to 
a  supposed  religious  duty  deliberately  chooses  of  two  equally  plausible 
doctrines  the  one  most  consistent  with  the  liigliest  morality. 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  473 

of  the  word  "nature,"  it  seemed  as  though  the  only 
way  out  of  it  was  to  take  the  most  universally  employed 
meaning  of  the  word  and  eliminate  all  other  meanings 
which  are  inconsistent  with  it.  And  as  nature  was 
characterised  best  by  its  opposition  to  art  and  spirit,  it 
was  decided  that  nature  must  be  deemed  to  include 
everything  in  the  world  except  what  pertains  to  spirit 
and  to  art.  Under  this  definition  nature  includes  that 
part  of  man  which  is  common  to  the  lower  animals,  but 
does  not  include  that  part  which  is  in  the  main  peculiar 
to  man,  and  which  is  found  perpetually  opposed  to  the 
animal  in  him.  Thus  the  animal  is  an  unconscious 
product  of  its  environment.  Man,  on  the  contrary,  is 
continually  engaged  in  consciously  moulding  an  envi- 
ronment of  his  own.  Animals  are  relatively  incapable 
of  refusing  a  present  pleasure  to  avoid  a  future  pain; 
whereas  the  whole  moral  education  of  man  consists  in 
strengthening  the  faculty  in  him  by  which  he  can  forego 
a  present  pleasure  in  order  to  avoid  a  future  pain.  The 
actions  of  animals  are  determined  by  habit  or  instinct, 
which  is  the  necessary  product  of  their  respective 
environments;  whereas  man,  though  lamentably  still 
a  creature  of  habit,  is  able,  by  education  and  reiter- 
ated acts  of  self-control,  to  create  habits  which,  because 
they  substitute  notions  of  general  utility  for  notions  of 
individual  utility,  gradually  lead  to  a  system  of  ethics, 
and  this  system  of  ethics  differs  in  every  social  group 
according  to  the  extent  to  which  human  effort  in  the 
direction  of  high  standards  of  social  life  have  been  suc- 
cessful. 

The  highest  standards  of  social  life  are  obviously 
those  which  lead  to  the  greatest  and  most  equally  dis- 
tributed happiness  for  all;  and  political  students  are 
confronted  with  the  problem  of  how  to  frame  institutions 
which  are  most  likely  to  result  in  this  desired  end.     And 


474  COLLECTIVISM 

in  framing  these  institutions  they  have  to  take  account 
of  the  obstacles  which  nature  puts  in  their  way,  — 
such,  for  example,  as  the  instinctive  selfishness  which 
centuries  of  competitive  struggle  have  created ;  sexual 
jealousy,  which  condemns  all  existing  collectivist  com- 
munities in  nature  to  the  subordination  and  massacre  of 
one  sex  by  the  other;  the  almost  uncontrollable  impulse 
of  sexual  desire,  which  necessarily  characterises  all 
races  possessed  of  high  vitality ;  the  evils  which  must 
result  from  the  necessary  effort,  by  such  artificial  in- 
stitutions as  marriage,  to  control  this  impulse;  the 
continuity  which  links  generations  of  men  so  that  we 
cannot  confine-  our  view  to  one  generation,  but  must 
create  institutions  that  will  tend  to  perpetuate  a  noble 
type  rather  than  a  base;  the  extreme  slowness  with 
which  organisms  adapt  themselves  to  new  environments, 
and  the  consequent  danger  of  revolutionary  change. 

In  this  study  of  the  formidable  difficulties  which 
nature  opposes  to  the  efforts  of  man,  the  political  student 
is  driven  to  revise  the  somewhat  simple  code  of  morals 
which  is  taught  by  our  religious  creeds.  The  ten  com- 
mandments thundered  from  Sinai  and  the  more  modern 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  found  to  order  conduct  which 
is  not  consistent  with  the  institutions  under  which  we 
live.  We  are  told,  "Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  and  yet  in 
all  our  churches  in  1898  prayers  were  offered  up  to  the 
Almighty  beseeching  him  to  strengthen  our  arms  that 
we  might  kill  the  greatest  number  of  Spaniards  possible. 
We  are  told,  "  If  any  man  would  take  away  thy  coat, 
give  unto  him  thy  cloak  also,"  and  yet  the  competitive 
system  which  some  of  our  political  philosophers  find 
so  good  is  one  which  permits  of  our  surviving  only  on 
the  condition  that  in  the  struggle  with  our  neighbour 
we  contrive  so  that  he  be  the  one  that  suffers  and  not 
ourselves. 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  475 

In  the  conflict  between  the  code  we  preach  and  the 
code  we  practise,  a  quiet  conscience  is.  impossible;  its 
voice  may  be  stifled  altogether,  as  in  the  case  of  those 
who  either  never  had  a  conscience  or  have  cynically 
silenced  it ;  or  it  may,  refusing  to  be  altogether  silenced, 
make  itself  heard  occasionally,  like  the  groans  of  a  Des- 
demona  under  the  pillows  of  a  reluctant  Moor.  But  a 
voice  which  can  express  itself  only  exceptionally  under 
the  pressure  of  intolerable  conditions  is  not  likely  to 
speak  words  of  unfaltering  wisdom.  Let  us  consider 
for  a  moment  how  in  the  field  of  morality  this  uncanny 
system  works. 

(J)   Morality  of  Co7npensation 

Competition  creates  a  peculiar  kind  of  morality  that 
may  be  called  the  morality  of  compensation.  It  proceeds 
upon  the  theory  that  as  the  struggle  for  life  obliges  the 
successful  man  to  be  the  occasion  of  death  to  some  of 
his  competitors,  of  ruin  to  many,  and  of  serfdom  to  the 
rest,  he  can  satisfy  his  conscience  by  surrendering  to 
works  of  philanthropy  some  part  of  the  income  he  cannot 
conveniently  spend  upon  himself.  This  willingness  to 
throw  a  sop  to  conscience  was  thoroughly  exploited  by 
the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  is  exploited  still  by 
our  churches,  our  philanthropic  societies,  and  even  our 
reform  associations,  so  that  we  continually  find  the  very 
men  who  corrupt  our  legislatures  subscribing  largely  to 
good  government  clubs  and  occupying  prominent  places 
on  committees  organised  for  the  very  purpose  of  making 
legislation  pure.  This  morality  of  compensation  has  a 
subtle  effect  upon  our  entire  population ;  we  are  all  of  us 
dimly  conscious  of  the  evil  which  results  from  the  social 
conditions  by  which  we  profit,  but,  unable  to  see  any 
solution  for  the  problems  to  which  these  give  rise,  we 


476  COLLECTIVISM 

are  driven  by  conscience  to  look  beyond  the  field  of  our 
own  responsibility  for  occasions  of  compensating  piety 
and  self-sacrifice.  This  leads  bankers  who  know  how 
to  make  profit  out  of  the  fluctuating  values  of  coin  at 
the  expense  of  the  farmers  when  it  rises,  and  of  the 
workman  when  it  falls,  to  head  committees  to  secure 
universal  peace  and  induces  fashionable  women  who 
exact  lower  prices  from  their  dressmakers  because  of 
the  vogue  their  patronage  can  confer,  to  inflame  the 
nation  to  war  with  Spain  out  of  sympathy  for  the 
reconcentrados.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  Christ  said  to 
the  young  man  who  asked  what  he  should  do  to  be 
saved,  "Sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor"? 

And  yet  we  are  by  no  means  to  conclude  that  if 
Christ  were  among  us  to-day  this  would  be  his  instruc- 
tion. Things  have  changed  since  Christ  preached  in 
Judea;  and,  aware  that  they  would  change,  He  said, 
"  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  can- 
not bear  them  now." 

Wealth  can  best  be  conceived  by  us  as  a  trust,  sad- 
dled by  heavy  responsibilities ;  and  the  first  duty  of  the 
wealthy  is  to  learn.  If  they  are  capable  of  throwing  off 
the  prejudice  which  wealth  inevitably  imposes  upon  them 
in  favour  of  the  institutions  through  which  they  retain 
their  wealth ;  if  they  will  give  to  the  solution  of  social 
problems  half  the  time  they  do  to  the  protection  of  their 
property ;  if  they  will  endeavour  not  merely  to  silence  con- 
science but  to  satisfy  it,  —  they  can  do  far  more  towards 
diminishing  unhappiness  by  using  their  wealth  than  by 
dissipating  it.  For  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  these 
problems  can  be  solved  in  a  day.  Not  only  does  it  take 
centuries  to  prepare  the  human  machine  for  great  social 
changes,  but  it  generally  takes  years  to  prepare  a  single 
human  mind  for  the  adoption  of  sound  social  views. 
Reading  one  book  will    not  do  it,  nor  reading  many; 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  477 

perhaps  the  only  way  is  the  way  of  suffering.  If, 
reader,  after  having  suffered,  you  are  driven  by  it  to  the 
endeavour  to  relieve  the  suffering  of  others,  and  you  find 
every  effort  to  do  this  fail  because  the  social  conditions 
manufacture  suffering  far  faster  than  you  can  relieve 
them ;  if  your  eyes  are  open  to  this  fact,  and  it  at  last 
becomes  a  burning  conviction,  so  that  wherever  you  look 
you  find  the  traces  of  it,  —  in  the  paupers  that  infest 
our  cities,  the  criminals  that  fill  our  jails ;  in  the  envy 
that  broods  in  the  cottages  of  the  poor  and  embitters 
even  the  homes  of  the  rich ;  in  the  servility  of  some  and 
the  truculence  of  others ;  in  the  falsehood,  the  slander, 
the  backbiting  that  the  wicked  use  to  prevail  over  those 
less  wicked  than  themselves ;  in  the  sacrifice  of  all  that 
we  value  most  in  our  hearts,  because  by  this  sacrifice 
alone  can  we  make  sure  of  the  things  that  we  have 
learned  to  believe  are  indispensable  to  our  bodies,  —  if 
there  is  anything  in  you  that  revolts  from  this  sacrifice 
of  all  that  is  noble  in  life  to  all  that  is  base  in  it,  then 
you  will  be  driven  by  a  logic  which  is  inexorable  to  ques- 
tion this  morality  of  compromise,  which,  taken  at  its 
best,  is  little  more  than  the  tribute  vice  pays  to  virtue. 

Nevertheless,  the  morality  of  compensation  has  ren- 
dered a  service  to  the  world,  for  not  only  has  it  con- 
tributed wealth  to  good  work,  but  it  has  kept  alive  the 
dwindling  spark  of  conscience.  When  one  robber  baron 
builds  a  church,  it  suggests  the  founding  of  a  hospital 
to  another;  and  thus  the  voice  of  conscience  makes  it- 
self heard  and  perpetuated.  But  as  a  theory  or  rule  of 
conduct  the  morality  of  compensation  will  not  bear 
scrutiny. 

If  we  would  conform  ourselves  to  the  dictates  of  jus- 
tice, it  is  the  inequalities  in  our  own  environment  that 
we  are  bound  to  diminish,  not  those  in  the  environment 
of  others;    and  it  is,  above   all,  the   inequalities   that 


478  COLLECTIVISM 

result  from  our  own  actions  to  which  our  attention  must 
first  be  directed,  especially  when  they  enure  to  our  own 
advantage.  We  must  be  just  ourselves  before  we 
preach  justice  to  others.  We  must  rid  ourselves  of  the 
beam  in  our  own  eye  before  we  set  about  removing  the 
mote  from  the  eye  of  our  neighbour. 

Now,  so  long  as  the  competitive  system  exists,  there 
is  a  discord  between  morality  and  practice  which  is 
entitled  to  every  dollar  of  money,  every  instant  of  time, 
that  we  have  to  devote  to  repairing  injustice.  Doubt- 
less there  is  more  injustice  in  Armenia  than  in  New 
York;  but  the  injustice  of  Armenia  is  not  our  injus- 
tice, whereas  that  of  New  York  is.  With  which,  then, 
are  we  to  deal  first? 

Many  pages  have  been  devoted  to  proving  that  the 
competitive  system  is  not  only  an  occasion  of  injustice, 
but  that  it  is  an  inevitable  cause  of  it ;  and  that  every 
man  and  woman  who  is  drawing  income  from  invest- 
ment^ is  directly  profiting  from  this  injustice.  This 
fact  is  so  obvious  that  it  tends  to  argue  in  favour  of 
revolution  rather  than  of  further  compliance;  it  seems 
to  command  us  to  "sell  that  we  have  "  rather  than  remain 
partners  to  so  unjust  a  system ;  it  makes  us  feel  indi- 
vidually responsible  for  all  the  pauperism  and  crime  we 
see  about  us ;  and  it  seems  as  though  we  must  immedi- 
ately remove  ourselves  from  complicity  with  the  social 
conditions  that  give  rise  to  them. 

Such  a  conclusion  would  seem,  however,  to  be  im- 
moral as  well  as  unwise.  It  would  be  a  surrender  to 
emotion ;  it  would  be  on  a  par  with  a  father  who  aban- 
dons his  family  to  secure  the  calm,  even  though  he  suffer 
the  rigours,  of  a  monastic  life.  We  are  not  alone  in  the 
world;  we  are  bound  to  our  fellow-creatures  by  bonds 
that  belong  to  nature  and  religion  as  much  as  to  art. 

1  See  ante,  book  i.  ch.  iii.,  §§  4,  5. 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  479 

We  have  not  forged  all  these  bonds  ourselves  nor  will- 
ingly submitted  to  them ;  they  have  been  imposed  upon 
us.  It  may  be  more  self-indulgent  to  shake  off  these 
bonds  than  patiently  to  endure  them.  The  problem 
before  us  is,  not  to  secure  freedom  from  what  galls  us 
in  these  bonds  for  ourselves,  but  to  secure  this  freedom 
for  others ;  and  in  no  problem  is  better  illustrated  the 
rule  of  wisdom,  —  for  wisdom  bids  us  refuse  to  listen  to 
a  voice  that  sounds  like  the  voice  of  religion,  whereas 
it  is  in  fact  the  voice  of  eagerness;  and  behind  the 
enthusiasm  of  eagerness  we  shall  generally  find  the 
cloven  foot  of  egotism.  This  point  is  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  deserve  special  consideration. 

So  long  as  we  are  all  driven  by  the  conflict  of  life, 
each  of  us  to  enrich  himself  regardless  of  our  neighbour, 
the  question  arises  whether  it  is  not  a  good  thing  to 
encourage  the  sentiment  that  is  willing  to  sacrifice  it- 
self in  the  interests  of  humanity,  however  foreign  from 
our  own  field  of  responsibility  may  be  that  in  which  the 
inhumanity  is  practised.  For  example,  admitting  that 
we  of  the  United  States  are  not  responsible  for  the  in- 
humanity practised  by  Spain  in  Cuba,  is  it  not  a  better 
thing  that  we  should  be  alive  to  the  claims  of  humanity 
there  than  that  we  should  be  dead  to  them?  Does  it 
not  tend  more  to  the  general  good  that  we  should,  at  a 
sacrifice  of  wealth  of  limb  and  of  life,  hold  up  a  high 
standard  of  national  morality  than  that,  obeying  the 
logic  of  prudence,  we  should  stay  at  home  to  in- 
crease our  hoard  of  prosperity  and  self-satisfaction  ? 

The  interest  of  this  question  lies  in  the  fact  that  we 
seem  to  have  no  sure  guide  to  its  solution.  Some  will 
think  we  should  mind  our  own  business;  others  will 
answer  that  minding  one's  own  business  is  the  princi- 
ple of   the    Levite  who  crossed    to   the  other  side  of 


480  COLLECTIVISM 

the  way.  And  between  the  two  the  problem  remains 
unsolved. 

If,  however,  we  were  not  only  clear  as  to  what  our 
duties  really  are,  but  were  also  engaged  in  performing 
them,  we  should  not  be  left  without  a  rule  of  action ; 
we  should,  above  all,  not  seek  to  compensate  for  the 
injustice  of  which  we  are  ourselves  hourly  the  occasion 
by  undertaking  to  repair  the  injustice  occasioned  by 
others ;  we  should  understand  that  we  must  clean  our 
own  stables  before  we  meddle  with  the  stables  of 
Augeas. 

Here  is  an  example  of  the  importance  of  coming  to  a 
clear  understanding  as  to  the  limits  of  our  responsibility ; 
and  here  an  illustration  of  the  utility  of  the  conclusions 
to  which  we  came  in  the  discussion  of  justice:  if  we 
clearly  understand  what  justice  is,  we  can  do  justice; 
otherwise  we  shall  be  committing  injustice  in  our  very 
efforts  to  suppress  it.  For  if  it  is  true  that  we  are 
engaged  in  a  conflict  with  certain  forces  in  nature  of 
which  some  are  within  our  control  and  others  beyond  it, 
clearly  we  are  responsible  only  in  so  far  as  we  apply  the 
necessary  effort  to  subdue  the  forces  that  are  subject  to 
such  effort;  and  we  are  not  responsible  as  regards  those 
forces  that  are  not  subject  to  it.  In  the  correct  analy- 
sis of  these  forces  lies  the  main  problem  of  human 
responsibility. 

The  lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  preceding  pages 
seems  to  be  that  not  only  does  the  conflict  between  the 
competitive  code  of  ethics  and  the  ideal  code  produce  a 
false  code,  —  the  morality  of  compensation,  —  but  that, 
so  long  as  this  conflict  continues,  the  morality  of  com- 
pensation may  be  better  than  no  morality  at  all. 

Nevertheless  this  conclusion  does  not  much  advance 
us,  for  there  seems  to  be  no  code  of  morality  that  we 
can  reconcile  to  our  consciences  and  yet  carry  into  our 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  481 

every-day  life.  For  example,  of  all  the  simple  rules  of 
morality,  the  one  comprised  in  the  two  words  "Be  just" 
is  perhaps  the  one  which  we  are  most  puzzled  to  obey. 
We  have  seen  that  the  competitive  system  which  we 
have  deliberately  adopted,  and  of  which  Herbert  Spencer 
and  his  following  so  indiscriminately  approve,  is  the 
system  of  nature  which  ignores  justice.  How,  then, 
shall  we  compete  and  nevertheless  be  just?  If  our 
wealth  is  to  be  earned  at  the  cost  of  poverty  to  others, 
how  are  we  just  ?  If  at  recurring  industrial  crises  the 
employer  can  no  longer  make  a  livelihood  except  by 
reducing  wages,  how  can  he  be  just  ?  And  if  the  work- 
ingmen  at  such  times  can  raise  wages  above  the  star- 
vation level  only  on  the  condition  of  ruining  their 
employer,  how  can  they  be  just?  If  it  is  part  of  the 
competitive  system  that  it  should  create  a  tyranny,  —  the 
tyranny  of  the  Market,  which  is  as  irresistible  in  its 
pressure  as  the  ocean  tide,  —  how  can  those  who  are 
equally  crushed  by  it,  employer  and  employ^,  and  are 
driven  by  the  system  to  fight  one  another  in  order  to 
come  out  alive  from  under  it,  how  can  they  be  just? 

The  conclusion  inevitably  brought  home  to  us  by  these 
facts  is  that  under  existing  conditions  we  appear  to  be 
hopelessly  adrift,  and  are  reduced  to  asking  one  an- 
other with  haggard  eyes :  — 

"  Ainsi  toujours  poussds  vers  de  nouveaux  rivages 
Dans  la  nuit  eternelle,  emport^s  sans  retour, 
Ne  pouiTons  nous  jamais  sur  I'ocdan  des  ages 
Ne  pourrons  nous  jamais  jeter  I'ancre  un  seul  jour  ?  " 

That  we  are  indeed  storm-tossed  on  a  rocky  coast 
seems  true ;  but  that  we  are  without  a  compass,  without 
a  port,  without  anchorage,  is  not  true.  Those  who, 
like  pirates,  are  deliberately  preying  upon  one  another 
may  be;  but  all,  I  think,  who  want  to  do  their  duty  may 

PA 


482  COLLECTIVISM 

without  much  difficulty  find  out  what  this  duty  is ;  and 
this,  when  clear,  will  be  compass  enough.  Meanwhile 
it  must  not  be  expected  that  with  the  wisest  captain  at 
the  helm  the  ship  of  State  can  sail  straight  for  the  des- 
tined port.  She  will  encounter  adverse  winds  before 
which  she  will  have  to  tack,  —  sometimes  far  away  into 
the  sea  of  individualism ;  sometimes  dangerously  close  to 
the  rocky  coast  of  anarchy ;  but  we  have  the  instruments 
at  our  hand  to  determine  our  course  if  we  choose  to  use 
them.  Let  us  for  a  moment  consider  what  these  instru- 
ments are. 


(c)  Morality  of  Collectivism 

Obviously  justice  is  the  admitted  aim  of  political  in- 
stitutions and  it  is  the  implied  aim  of  individual  religion. 
Religious  teachers  may  have  couched  their  lessons  in 
other  terms ;  other  virtues  may  have  been  given  greater 
prominence  in  different  religious  systems ;  but  the  prin- 
cipal result  of  all  ethical  doctrines  upon  the  relations  of 
man  to  man  is  that  they  exhort  us  to  act  justly.  Unfor- 
tunately the  first  difficulty  that  presents  itself  to  a  man 
who  desires  to  act  justly  is  the  problem  what  justice  is. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  position  of  an  employer 
who  stands  between  misery  to  his  employees  or  misery  to 
his  own  family  is  inextricable ;  and  it  has  been  justly  said 
that  the  most  cruel  tragedies  are  those  that  result,  not 
from  a  conflict  between  right  and  wrong,  but  from  a  con- 
flict between  right  and  right.  It  is  because  this  conflict 
between  right  and  right  is  continually  presenting  itself 
in  the  competition  of  life  that  our  first  duty  must  be  to 
make  up  our  mind  what  justice  really  is.  And  the  study 
we  have  made  seems  to  show  that  justice  cannot  be  in- 
cluded within  the  four  sides  of  a  definition,  but  that  it 
is  a  perpetual  struggle  which  man  is  doomed  to  make 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  483 

against  the  injustice  of  Nature ;  that  Nature  is  indiffer- 
ent to  justice;  that  she  pursues  her  ends  through  the 
inequalities  of  her  subjects,  through  their  misery  and 
destruction;  that  all  that  is  most  abhorrent  to  us  for 
its  brutality,  its  venom,  and  its  injustice  is  the  direct 
result  of  the  favouritism  shown  by  Nature  to  those  best 
able  to  kill  and  eat;  that  whereas  Nature  has  herself 
pointed  the  way  towards  co-operation  as  an  improvement 
upon  competition,  she  has  not  been  able  to  reconcile 
co-operation  with  sexual  jealousy;  nor  has  she  in  co- 
operative communities  any  concern  for  the  individual, 
but  only  for  the  race ;  that,  in  a  word,  the  deification  of 
Nature  is  a  gross  blunder;  that  in  the  world  about  us 
there  is  much  that  is  beautiful  and  Qiuch  that  is  bad ; 
that  man  can  by  art  favour  the  survival  of  the  beautiful 
and  disfavour  that  of  the  bad;  that  weakness  forces  the 
weak  many  to  combine  against  the  few  strong ;  that  this 
combination,  by  promoting  mutual  happiness,  encour- 
ages an  extension  of  sympathy  from  sexual  to  parental 
love  first ;  then  from  parental  to  tribal ;  next,  from  the 
tribe  to  the  city,  from  the  city  to  the  State,  and,  last  of 
all,  perhaps,  from  the  State  to  the  whole  race ;  that  the 
extension  of  sympathy  and  love,  which  is  the  most 
conspicuous  beneficent  tendency  in  the  scheme  of  crea- 
tion, continually  nerves  man  to  substitute  love  in  his 
relations  to  his  fellow-creatures  for  hate ;  but  that  the 
competitive  system  which  he  has  unnecessarily  adopted 
is  irreconcilable  with  this  substitution ;  that  this  irrecon- 
cilability has  not  yet  become  clear  to  him  because  centu- 
ries of  heredity  and  education  have  closed  his  mind  to 
the  possibility  of  dispensing  with  it,  and  because  the 
same  centuries  of  heredity  and  education  have  made  him 
so  selfish  that  he  is  still  unfitted  to  dispense  with  it; 
that  nevertheless  he  has  been  unconsciously  set,  by  the 
extension  of  his  sympathies,  upon  a  struggle  with  Nature 


484  COLLECTIVISM 

which,  when  analysed,  turns  out  to  have  a  definite 
though  as  yet  but  dimly  perceived  purpose ;  that  this 
purpose  is  to  reduce  to  the  utmost  possible  the  effect  of 
natural  inequalities  upon  the  happiness  of  men  by  sub- 
stituting, to  the  utmost  possible,  co-operation  for  com- 
petition in  his  social  and  economic  institutions,  and  so 
to  frame  these  institutions  as  to  make  them  serve  the 
happiness  of  the  individual  as  well  as  promote  the  im- 
provement of  the  race ;  that  in  his  efforts  to  accomplish 
this  task  he  has  been  assisted  by  two  great  principles, 
—  the  tendency  of  sympathy  to  develop  and  expand,  and 
a  faculty  of  the  mind  whereby  it  attributes  a  divine 
sanction  to  this  tendency.  The  former  of  these  is  termed 
morality;  the  latter  religion.  Both  have  been  continu- 
ally at  work  framing  institutions  which  selfishness  has 
as  often  succeeded  in  appropriating  to  its  own  use,  but 
on  the  whole  the  perpetual  necessity  of  the  weak  to 
combine  against  the  strong  is  gradually  preparing  man 
for  a  deliberate  reconstruction  of  his  social  system,  so 
that,  instead  of  leaving  justice  to  the  accident  of  the 
conflict  between  opposing  egotisms,  the  scope  of  ego- 
tism may  be  so  much  reduced  that  morality  will  become 
the  rule  and  egotism  the  exception. 

In  the  course  of  our  studies  we  have  endeavoured  to 
distinguish  the  forces  in  nature  which  were  opposed  to 
us  from  those  that  were  in  our  favour,  and  those  which 
must  apparently  always  be  opposed  to  us  from  those 
which  we  may  hope  ultimately  to  overcome.  And  it  has 
seemed  clear  that,  so  far  as  our  present  imperfect  knowl- 
edge can  foresee,  we  can  never  entirely  overcome  the 
consequences  upon  different  men  of  the  inequalities 
which  Nature  stamps  upon  them  at  their  birth.  But  it 
has  been  shown  that  egotism  has  appropriated  to  its  use 
the  very  devices  conceived  by  man  to  diminish  the  in- 
equalities of  Nature,  —  as,  for  example,  the  device  of 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  485 

private  property,  —  so  as  to  convert  it  into  the  greatest 
of  all  sources  of  inequality  and  injustice.  And  it  has 
been  shown  that  so  ingrained  has  become  the  respect 
for  the  "sacredness"  of  private  property,  so  powerful 
have  become  those  who  have  profited  by  it,  and  so  slow 
is  the  human  organism  to  adapt  itself  to  the  profound 
changes  which  the  abandonment  of  private  property 
would  occasion,  that  the  abandonment  cannot  be  effected 
rapidly  without  danger  to  the  State.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  difficulty  of  so  ordering  our  conduct 
as  to  do  the  utmost  possible  in  order  to  effect  the 
change,  and  yet  not  do  that  utmost  so  rapidly  as  to 
endanger  the  State,  becomes  one  of  extreme  perplexity. 
With  a  view  of  throwing  some  light  upon  this  subject, 
the  following  considerations  may  be  submitted :  — ■ 

In  the  first  place,  no  Christian  can  entertain  a  doubt  as 
to  the  religious  desirability  of  collectivism.  He  may 
doubt  its  practicability ;  but  that  collectivism  is  tlie  only 
form  of  government  consistent  with  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  cannot  be  denied.  Commercialism  makes  Chris- 
tian life  impossible ;  the  attempt  to  reconcile  them  can 
lead  to  but  a  single  result,  —  hypocrisy.  Undoubtedly 
there  are  exceptional  conditions  in  which  great  wealth 
permits  of  great  philanthropy;  in  such  case  a  Christian 
life  may  be  led  by  one  engaged  in  commerce.  Fortu- 
nately, too,  there  are  many  occupations  in  and  around 
the  commercial  system  in  which  a  contented  spirit  may 
lead  a  Christian  life ;  but  these  are  exceptional,  nor  are 
they  ever  secure.  At  any  moment  the  pressure  may 
come,  and  then  it  is  "Every  man  for  himself,  and  the 
devil  take  the  hindmost."  The  constant  pressure  of 
commercialism  (and  it  is  this  very  pressure  that  Spen- 
cerians  most  approve)  perpetually  urges  men  to  get  the 
better  of  one  another,  and  in  so  doing  to  violate  the 
fundamental  principles  of  Christ. 


486  COLLECTIVISM 

Collectivism,  on  the  contrary,  makes  Christianity  pos- 
sible; moreover,  it  is  the  only  political  system  which 
does.  This  argument  it  is  difficult  to  resist.  The  light 
may  dazzle  us  as  it  did  Paul  on  the  way  to  Damascus ; 
we  may  strive  to  resist  it;  but  if  we  do,  we  shall  hear 
the  words  of  the  Master,  "  It  is  hard  to  kick  against  the 
pricks." 

In  the  second  place,  however  desirable  collectivism 
may  be,  it  is  not  immediately  realisable. 

The  arguments  against  any  attempt  to  introduce  col- 
lectivism suddenly  into  our  political  system  founded 
on  science  and  expedience  have  been  made  elsewhere. 
Moreover,  they  do  not  belong  to  this  context.  But  there 
are  moral  grounds  against  such  a  course  which  deserve 
attention. 

The  chapter  on  wealth  will  have  been  written  in  vain 
if  it  has  not  proved  that  the  rich  are  for  the  most  part 
as  helpless  regarding  the  injustice  that  prevails  as  the 
poor.  Undoubtedly  there  are  rich  men  who  deliberately 
and  mercilessly  oppress  the  poor ;  but  the  vast  majority 
of  them  are  as  little  to  be  blamed  for  the  misery  in  the 
world  as  those  who  suffer  it;  and  many  among  them 
devote  both  time  and  money  to  attempts  —  for  the  most 
part  futile  —  to  suppress  it.  We  are  like  men  in  a 
panic-stricken  crowd:  every  one  thinks  he  is  being 
crushed  by  his  neighbour,  whereas  the  neighbour  is 
merely  the  body  through  whom  the  crushing  force  is 
transmitted.  It  is  upon  this  point  that  Socialists  have 
for  the  most  part  erred.  They  have  inflamed  the  hos- 
tility of  the  unwealthy  for  the  wealth}-  by  describing 
the  rich  as  "grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor."  But  with 
rare  exceptions  it  will  be  found  that  this  accusation  is 
not  justified;  even  the  "Sweater,"  who  so  long  figured 
in  the  pages  of  Punch  as  a  gorgeously  dressed  but  brutal 
Jew  with  a  finely  polished  new  silk  hat  and  massive  gold 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  487 

chain  and  seal,  turns  out  to  be  a  mere  fiction  of  the 
brain :  he  is  not  a  sweater  but  a  sweatee ;  he  is  in  the 
garment  business  not  in  order  to  lower  wages,  but  be- 
cause wages  are  low ;  his  profit  on  every  garment  hardly 
amounts  to  a  penny,  and  if  the  price  paid  per  garment 
were  raised  a  penny,  his  profit  would  disappear.  There 
are  a  few,  a  very  few,  wealthy  middlemen  in  sweated 
industries.  But  this  is  because  at  the  low  rate  of  wages 
that  prevails  a  few  have  the  skill  immensely  to  extend 
their  business,  and  are  enabled  by  the  largeness  of  their 
transactions  to  make  up  for  the  minute  profit  on  every 
item.  Nay,  more,  the  sweater  turns  out  to  be  a  benefit 
to  the  community ;  for  if  he  were  to  disappear  and  no 
better  employer  were  to  step  in  his  place  (and  the  com- 
petitive system  would  produce  none),  the  wretches  who 
now  live  on  his  wages  would  be  even  worse  off  than  they 
are  to-day. 

The  evil  does  not  reside  in  the  rich,  but  in  the  system 
that  produces  the  rich. 

If,  then,  the  rich  are  not  to  blame,  justice  forbids  that 
they  should  be  punished.  They  are  capable  of  suffer- 
ing as  well  as  the  poor,  and,  indeed,  infinitely  more 
capable  of  it ;  for  their  doom  is  that,  rich  though  they  be, 
they  are  but  little  if  any  happier.  They,  too,  are  vic- 
tims of  the  system.  The  man  who  labours  with  his  brain 
is  worn  out  far  sooner  than  he  who  works  witli  his 
hands;  as  long  as  the  work  lasts,  the  latter  brings  to 
every  meal  at  least  a  large  and  wholesome  appetite; 
whereas  the  former  is  driven  to  eat  by  exhaustion  rather 
than  desire.  What  would  be  the  consequence  of  setting 
these  two  men  down  to  a  common  table  7^     Not  only 

1  Not  that  a  common  table  forms  part  of  the  proposed  plan  of  collec- 
tivism, which,  on  the  contrary,  attaches  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
preservation  and  adornment  of  the  home.  But  a  common  table  would 
probably  form  part  of  any  scheme  of  collectivism  that  emanated  from 
those  now  agitating  it. 


488  COLLECTIVISM 

would  the  brain-worker  in  the  end  starve,  but  he  would 
immediately  become  useless  to  the  community.  It  is 
not  his  fault  that  a  mistaken  system  of  education  has 
forced  upon  his  brain  hours  of  labour  at  an  age  when  it 
was  totally  unprepared  for  labour  of  any  kind ;  and  that 
it  has  ever  since  called  upon  that  brain  for  work  accom- 
plished at  the  expense  of  every  vital  organ  that  he  has. 
Nor  is  it  his  fault  if  a  defective  digestion,  shattered 
nerves,  or  a  weak  heart  permit  of  his  remaining  useful 
to  the  community  only  on  the  condition  of  a  well-served 
table,  delicately  prepared  food,  and  carefully  selected 
wines.  These  things  no  longer  give  him  pleasure;  they 
have  become  a  necessity.  To  deprive  him  of  them 
would  be  as  unjust  as  to  deprive  a  workman  of  his 
bread.  This  may  not  sound  reasonable  to  a  workman ; 
to  him  these  things,  far  from  being  a  necessity,  seem  an 
exorbitant  luxury;  he  little  knows  the  keen  enjoyment 
which  a  tired  brain-worker  takes  in  that  first  return  of 
appetite  that  responds  to  a  period  of  brain  rest.  He 
cannot  understand  the  frantic  exercise  that  rich  men 
take  —  deer-stalking,  mountain-climbing,  and  the  rest 
—  merely  in  order  to  recover  the  appetite  that  can  bite 
with  pleasure  into  a  loaf  of  bread,  —  the  appetite  which 
the  workman  himself  enjoys  at  eyery  meal ;  nor  can  he 
appreciate  the  misery  which  the  absence  of  this  appetite 
brings  with  it,  —  the  pain  of  exhaustion,  the  discourage- 
ment, the  despair. 

On  board  a  Dover  packet  once  I  witnessed  a  scene 
between  a  sailor  and  a  millionaire  which  illustrates  the 
argument.  The  sailor  had  been  caring  for  the  rich  man 
during  the  stormy  passage;  securing  him  a  seat  least 
exposed  to  spray,  covering  him  with  tarpaulins,  and 
rendering  him  such  other  services  as  are  needful  during 
that  mauvais  quart  dlieure.  As  we  reached  port  the 
rich  man  gave  the  sailor  a  sovereign;  the  sailor's  eye 


SUMMAEY  AND  CONCLUSION  489 

glistened.  "What  will  you  do  with  it?"  said  the  rich 
man.  The  sailor  —  for  he  was  a  Frenchman  —  answered 
volubly,  but  the  crowning  glory  of  his  expected  treat 
was,  "un  bon  petit  diner  avec  la  bourgeoise."  "Ah," 
said  the  rich  man,  sadly,  "with  ten  times  that  money 
you  could  not  give  me  a  dinner  I  could  enjoy;"  and 
from  the  expression  of  his  face  I  am  mistaken  if  that 
sailor  did  not  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  wonder  whether 
he  was  not  the  better  off  of  the  two. 

If  the  rich  are  victims  of  the  competitive  system  as 
well  as  the  poor,  clearly  there  is  no  imperative  duty  to 
punish  them  for  its  injustice.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
clearly  our  duty  to  see  that  the  guiltless  among  them 
suffer  from  a  change  of  institutions  the  least  possible. 

We  now  pass  to  the  third  point,  which  is,  perhaps, 
the  most  important  of  the  three. 

If  collectivism,  though  ultimately  desirable,  is  not 
realisable  at  once,  what  is  our  moral  duty  in  this 
connection  ? 

One  of  the  principal  objects  of  this  book  is  to  present 
the  difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way  of  justice;  to 
show  that  these  difficulties  are  some  of  them  beyond  our 
reach  and,  therefore,  outside  of  our  responsibility ;  that 
our  success  will  depend  upon  our  knowledge  of  the 
forces  in  nature  that  we  can  summon  to  our  aid  and  our 
ingenuity  in  the  application  of  these  forces  to  the  ends 
of  justice,  —  in  other  words,  that  justice  is  a  matter  of 
morality  and  intelligence,  and  not  of  morality  alone. 
And  morality  and  intelligence  combined  have  been  called 
wisdom. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  this  age  that  morality  and  in- 
telligence have  been  mutually  repelling  each  other  in 
the  so-called  conflict  between  science  and  religion. 
Science  began  the  conflict  quite  unintentionally  by 
breaking  down  the  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church; 


490  COLLECTIVISM 

and  she  aggravated  it  next  by  breaking  down  the 
authority  of  the  Protestant  Bible.  The  inevitable  con- 
sequence has  been  that  the  religious  world  has  learned 
to  look  upon  the  scientific  world  with  suspicion;  and 
the  scientific  world  has  returned  the  compliment  by 
looking  on  the  religious  world  with  contempt. 

In  this  so-called  conflict  is  illustrated  again  the  fact 
that  men  may  be  driven  to  fighting  one  another  and  yet 
neither  of  them  be  responsible  for  it.  Science  did  not 
set  to  work  with  a  view  to  breaking  down  the  authority 
of  either  Church  or  Bible;  but  the  effect  of  her  re- 
searches was  to  accomplish  both.  The  religious  world, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  shocked  in  its  most  sacred  senti- 
ments by  what  seemed  the  rank  blasphemy  of  science ; 
hence  a  fire  was  kindled  which  neither  the  leaders  of 
science  nor  the  leaders  of  the  Church  could  extinguish. 
It  is  true  they  did  not  make  much  effort  to  do  so ;  some 
of  them,  indeed,  did  what  they  could  to  spread  the  con- 
flagration. But  to-day,  though  many  on  both  sides  are 
eager  to  extinguish  it,  they  are  to  a  great  extent  power- 
less to  do  so.  Religion  has  created  a  habit  of  mind 
among  its  votaries  which  can  only  regard  the  dissent 
of  science  with  indignation.  Most  Christians,  for  ex- 
ample, are  so  wedded  to  the  doctrine  of  future  jninisli- 
ment  tl^at  the  Church  to  which  they  belong  would 
estrange  them  by  abandoning  it.  And  they  must  not 
be  estranged ;  they  need  the  support  of  the  Church ;  it 
is  upon  this  support  that  what  morality  they  have  de- 
pends ;  no  one  who  understands  the  temperament  of  the 
ignorant  could  look  upon  the  decay  of  the  Roman  Church 
with  any  other  feeling  than  that  of  dismay.  Fortu- 
nately the  human  mind  is  complicated  enough  to  be  able 
to  reconcile  even  the  doctrine  of  hell  with  the  liighest 
intellectual  attainments,  and  we  may  look  with  confi- 
dence to  a  long  survival  in  the  Roman  hierarchy  of  a 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  491 

priesthood  capable  of  preaching  this  doctrine  without 
conscious  insincerity.  We  have  therefore  to  reconcile 
ourselves  to  a  protracted  struggle  between  the  Church 
on  the  one  hand  and  science  on  the  other.  The  human 
machine  is  so  constructed  as  to  make  this  conflict  not 
only  necessary,  but  even  expedient.  Doubtless  it  will 
become  less  and  less  bitter  with  the  spread  of  education ; 
doubtless  among  those  Christians  who  are  capable  of 
what  are  denounced  by  the  others  as  broad  views  it  has 
already  disappeared  altogether.  But  for  those  who  are 
ignorant  and  for  those  whose  education  has  run  into  a 
mould  from  which  they  cannot  escape,  the  conflict  must 
continue. 

There  is  one  field,  however,  upon  which  all  can  meet, 
—  ignorant  and  educated;  religious  and  irreligious; 
sceptic  and  devout;  Romanist  and  Protestant;  broad 
views  and  narrow  views ;  orthodox  and  heterodox ;  rich 
and  poor,  —  all  can  meet  and  co-operate  upon  the 
neutral  field  of  politics.  And  the  duty  to  do  this  is, 
perhaps,  to-day  the  nearest  and  most  imperative  duty  of 
all.  For  never  are  two  or  three  men  gathered  together 
for  a  political  purpose  but  egotism  is  somewhere  at  work 
to  appropriate  the  result  of  their  action  to  its  own  ends. 
And  unless  all  the  morality  in  the  nation  is  engaged  in 
fighting  this  egotism,  this  last  will  end  by  prevailing  in 
the  future  as  it  has  in  the  past. 

But  there  is  probably  more  morality  in  the  world  than 
the  best  of  us  know ;  we  see  so  much  more  of  the  evil 
that  we  tend  to  overlook  the  good.  Even  in  politics, 
which  we  in  America  are  so  willing  to  denounce 
as  corrupt,  there  is  far  less  iniquity  than  is  imagined. 
Only  a  very  few  political  leaders  are  really  bad ;  most 
of  them  are  anxious  to  be  as  good  as  circumstances  will 
permit,  —  not  always  for  the  best  of  motives,  but  out  of 
respect  for  the  morality  in  the  community  which  makes 


492  COLLECTIVISM 

it  wise  for  them  to  "  pander  a  little  to  the  public  will. " 
Our  fellow-citizens  would  be  surprised,  were  they  care- 
fully to  study  our  history,  to  find  how  often,  when  a 
clear  moral  issue  has  been  raised,  the  majority  has  voted 
on  the  right  side;  they  would  also  be  surprised  were 
they  to  collect  the  excellent  laws  which  public  morality 
has  extracted  from  the  worst  of  legislatures.  We  are 
not  an  immoral  people;  on  the  contrary  there  is  per- 
haps no  people  in  the  world  more  sincerely  moral  than 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  It  is  not  our  morality 
that  is  at  fault;  it  is  our  wisdom.  We  often  do  not 
understand  the  issue;  we  see  the  evils  before  us  con- 
fusedly; we  do  not  know  how  to  overcome  them;  we 
stumble  in  our  efforts ;  and  egotism  is  always  watching 
its  opportunity  to  take  advantage  of  our  mistakes. 

And  wisdom  must  not  be  confounded  with  knowl- 
edge, for  "knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers."  We 
need  knowledge  too,  but  knowledge  comes  in  vain  if  it 
is  not  wedded  to  morality.  It  is  the  combination  of 
knowledge  and  egotism  that  keeps  our  institutions  bad; 
it  is  only  a  combination  of  knowledge  and  moralit}^  that 
can  make  them  good. 

Here,  then,  is  the  importance  of  making  up  our  minds 
what  justice  is,  and,  once  known,  of  keeping  it  before 
our  minds  as  the  mariner  does  the  polar  star.  For  so 
long  as  the  framing  of  our  institutions  are  left  to  the 
accidental  results  of  perpetual  conflicts  between  oppos- 
ing egotisms,  improvement,  though  possible  and  prob- 
able in  the  end,  is  not  only  uncertain  but  may  be 
protracted  indefinitely.  We  are  like  Mr.  Thorndike's 
cat  in  the  box  with  a  latched  door.^  Eventually,  in  the 
frantic  movements  of  the  cat  to  escape,  accident  will 
cause  some  part  of  its  body  to  move  the  latch,  and  it  will 
escape.     But  our  position  is  still  more  complicated  than 

1  See  vol.  i.,  "Justice,"  pp.  166-168. 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  493 

this ;  for  we  are,  as  it  were,  in  a  labyrinth,  and  we  can 
never  tell  whether  the  door  we,  by  these  unreflecting 
movements,  open,  will  lead  us  to  liberty  or,  on  the  con- 
trary, remove  us  farther  from  it.  We  should  now  no 
longer  allow  this  question,  fraught  with  such  weighty 
consequences,  to  depend  upon  the  accident  of  conflict- 
ing selfishness.  The  method  of  accident  is  that  of  the 
lower  animals.  We  have  already  seen  how  that  of  man 
differs  from  it ;  animals  learn  by  the  slow  acquisition  of 
habits;  men  learn  by  the  immediate  flash  of  intelligence. 
Let  us  apply  our  intellectual  methods  to  politics ;  let  us 
at  last  make  up  our  minds  what  we  want  to  attain ;  and 
let  us  deliberately  make  our  plans  to  lift  the  latches 
that  keep  us  from  attaining  it  one  by  one,  not  by  hazard, 
but  by  design. 

And  let  us  above  all  things  possess  our  souls  in  pa- 
tience. Among  the  vast  and  stupendous  ruins  that  have 
survived  the  decay  of  Egypt,  there  is  not  a  single  pri- 
vate dwelling  or  a  single  palace  of  a  king.  They  are 
all  temples  or  tombs ;  for  the  Egyptian  religion  taught 
that  life  was  a  brief  span  in  a  long  existence,  and  that 
the  only  monuments  worth  building  for  a  permanence 
were  the  temples  that  prepared  the  body  for  the  future 
life  and  the  tombs  that  preserved  it  there.  So  also  an 
Arab  tale  likens  a  dwelling  to  an  inn;  for  no  sooner 
does  one  man  arrive  but  he  leaves,  and  his  place  is  taken 
by  another. 

"  'Tis  but  a  Tent  where  takes  his  one  day's  rest 
A  Sultan  to  the  realm  of  Death  addrest; 
The  Sultan  rises,  and  the  dark  Ferrdsh 
Strikes,  and  prepares  it  for  another  Guest." 

In  this  thought  will  be  found  the  faith  which  permits 
men  to  labour  without  eagerness ;  that  is  content  to  sow 
without    reaping;    and   that   does    the    duty   which   is 


494  COLLECTIVISM 

nearest  without  aiming  at  that  which  flatters  egotism 
because  it  seems  to  be  tlie  most  heroic.  Patience,  then, 
is  the  hall-mark  of  political  morality. 

((T)  Morality  and  Religion 

The  moral  view  of  government  would  not  be  complete 
without  some  consideration  of  the  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics of  morality  and  religion ;  for  the  differences 
which  characterise  them  have  no  small  bearing  upon  the 
success  or  failure  of  our  political  programme. 

The  mere  fact  of  association  develops  in  animals  qual- 
ities specifically  different  and  even  opposite  to  those  of 
animals  that  lead  solitary  lives.  The  large  carnivora 
which  are  driven  by  their  ferocity  to  solitude,  and  fitted 
by  their  strength  for  it,  enjoy  the  greatest  liberty  or 
freedom  of  action ;  they  are  stimulated  by  one  motive, 
—  selfishness ;  they  are  incapable  of  obedience  or 
discipline. 

Animals,  on  the  other  hand,  which  are  driven  by 
their  weakness  to  associate  with  one  another,  in  order 
by  association  to  resist  the  strong,  sacrifice  a  portion  of 
their  liberty  for  the  security  which  the  association 
affords,  and  are  driven  by  the  very  fact  of  association  to 
comply  with  the  law  of  their  society,  whatever  that  law 
may  be,  thus  acquiring  notions  of  obedience  and  disci- 
pline; and  the  more  intimate  the  association  and  the 
more  highly  developed,  the  more  selfishness  yields  to 
unselfishness.  It  appears,  therefore,  that  individuals 
associated  in  a  community  derive  satisfaction  from  the 
benefits  they  confer  upon  the  entire  community,  whereas 
solitary  animals  derive  satisfaction  only  from  the  benefit 
which  they  confer  upon  themselves.  The  explanation 
afforded  by  science  for  the  development  of  unselfishness 
is  that  the  connnunities  the  individuals  of  which  pos- 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  495 

sessed  it  most  highly  developed,  were  the  communities 
which  ill  the  struggle  for  life  survived ;  it  has  become  a 
habit  which  is  inherited;  and  in  animals  it  is  termed 
instinct.  It  is  almost  certain  that  ants  have  no  option 
as  regards  their  social  functions;  they  perform  them 
automatically,  and  probably  in  great  part  unconsciously. 
When  ants  tear  a  moth  apart,  instead  of  devouring  the 
morsels,  as  dogs  would,  they  carry  these  morsels  imme- 
diately to  the  nest.  The  instinct  of  the  dog  or  wolf, 
even  those  that  hunt  in  packs,  is  for  each  to  satisfy  his 
own  hunger ;  the  instinct  of  the  ant  is  to  store  food  for 
the  benefit  of  the  community. 

Man  has  doubtless  acquired  habits  from  long  social 
life  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  ant;  but  the  social 
qualities  which  man  possesses  differ  radically  from 
those  which  ants  and  all  the  lower  animals  possess,  in 
the  fact  that  while  the  latter  do  not  seem  to  be  free  to 
adopt  an  alternative  course,  man  is  free  to  do  so.  In 
other  words,  the  question  how  far  a  man  will  be  selfish 
and  how  far  he  will  be  unselfish  is  a  matter  which  is 
left  largely  to  his  determination.  He  may  decide  to  be 
selfish ;  or  he  may  decide  to  make  the  necessary  effort 
to  be  unselfish ;  or  he  may  satisfy  unselfish  instincts  and 
be  unselfish  without  effort. 

The  element  of  choice  or  effort  distinguishes  man's 
social  qualities  from  that  of  lower  animals  and  fur- 
nishes the  characteristic  of  what  is  called  virtue; 
in  this  way  the  mere  instinct  of  the  ant  becomes 
converted  into  virtue  in  man  through  the  necessity 
in  man,  for  the  most  part,  of  some  effort  or  sacrifice 
for  its  exercise. 

Virtue  does  not  always  involve  either  effort  or  sacri- 
fice, because  some  men  are  born  with  social  qualities 
highly  developed,  so  that  they  more  naturally  act  un- 
selfishly than  selfishly.     Others,  again,  are  at  birth  en- 


496  COLLECTIVISM 

tirely  deficient  in  social  qualities,  so  that  they  by  nature 
act  selfishly  rather  than  unselfishly.  And  between  the 
individual  born  a  saint  and  the  individual  born  a  crim- 
inal there  is  every  conceivable  grade.  As  language, 
however,  is  practically  made  by  "the  average  sensual 
man,"  unselfishness  is  a  virtue  for  the  reason  that  it 
does  generally  involve  some  effort,  and  sometimes 
involves  a  great  deal. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  the  social  qualities  of 
the  lower  animals  differ  from  the  social  qualities  of 
men,  in  that  the  former  are  instinctive,  unconscious, 
undeliberate,  and  unattended  by  effort;  whereas  social 
qualities  in  men  generally  involve  some  effort,  some 
consciousness,  some  deliberation,  and  some  sacrifice. 

Aristotle's  definition  of  virtue,  that  it  is  a  habit  of  the 
mind,  entirely  fails  to  take  account  of  these  differences 
between  the  social  qualities  of  the  lower  animals  and 
those  of  man.  The  social  qualities  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals are  truly  described  as  habits ;  but  the  social  quali- 
ties of  man  are  in  part  habit,  and  in  part  deliberate  acts 
of  choice.  It  is  because  the  social  qualities  of  man  are 
generally  characterised  by  effort  or  sacrifice  that  they 
have  been  specifically  given  the  name  of  virtue. 

There  is  another  difference  between  the  social  quali- 
ties of  man  and  of  the  lower  animals  which  for  the  sake 
of  clearness  it  may  be  well  not  to  overlook;  the  social 
qualities  of  all  lower  animals  resolve  themselves  into 
habits  of  the  body  for  the  most  part,  being  for  the  most 
part  unattended  by  emotion,  or  hesitation,  or  conscious- 
ness. They  are  practically  automatic.  The  ant  takes 
his  morsel  to  the  nest  without  conscious  or  unconscious 
struggle;  it  is  its  nature  to  do  so;  it  cannot  do  other- 
wise. The  construction  of  man  is  more  complicated ;  he 
acquires  and  undoubtedly  inherits  habits  of  the  body 
much  in  the  same  way  as  tlie  lower  animals  do;  but  he 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  497 

also  acquires  and  inherits  habits  of  the  heart,  or  of  the 
mind,  which  are  far  less  certain  in  their  operation  and 
which  depend  in  every  individual  upon  his  environment 
as  well  as  his  parentage.  It  is  these  last  habits  of  the 
mind  or  of  the  heart  which  are  called  conscience.  Habits 
of  the  body  and  habits  of  the  heart  do  not  always  coin- 
cide :  as  where  a  man  is  at  heart  a  murderer,  but  is  pre- 
vented from  committing  murder  by  the  fact  that  his 
hand  will  not  respond  to  his  heart;  or  the  inverse  case 
where  a  man's  physical  habits  lead  him  to  violence,  but 
this  violence  is  perpetually  restrained  by  tenderness  of 
conscience. 

It  is  not,  however,  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  this 
argument  to  distinguish  between  the  two  different  habits 
of  heart  and  body.  The  man  who  has  highly  developed 
within  him  both  social  habits  of  the  body  and  social 
habits  of  the  mind  that  would  make  him  refrain  from 
anti-social  acts  may  be  defined  generally  as  a  moral 
man;  the  man  who  has  these  qualities  not  highly  de- 
veloped or  not  developed  at  all  may  be  regarded  gener- 
ally as  a  non-moral  man.  Let  us  now  consider  how  the 
moral  man  and  the  non-moral  man  are  respectively  in- 
fluenced in  their  conduct  by  their  intelligence.  The 
naturally  moral  man  will  find  morality  justified  by  the 
general  happiness  which  results  therefrom,  and  if  he  be 
not  tempted  by  the  possession  of  extraordinary  intelli- 
gence which  can  set  before  him  the  advantages  which  his 
extraordinary  intelligence  gives  him  for  getting  the 
best  of  his  fellow-creatures,  his  morality  and  intelligence 
will  combine  to  enhance  his  social  qualities  rather  than 
to  diminish  them.  Prudence,  on  the  other  hand,  will 
recommend  the  non-moral  man  of  average  intelligence 
to  make  the  effort  necessary  to  live  in  social  harmony 
with  his  neighbours.  But  if  the  non-moral  man  is 
possessed  of   intelligence   above   the   general   average, 

32 


498  COLLECTIVISM 

there  will  be  nothing  in  him  to  resist  the  temptation 
to  use  that  intelligence  for  his  own  advantage  at  the 
expense  of  others.  Superior  intelligence,  therefore, 
sets  all  non-moral  men  to  taking  advantage  of  those  who 
are  of  a  lower  order  of  intelligence.  There  is  thus 
maintained  in  human  society  a  perpetual  conflict 
between  intelligence  and  morality.  The  issue  of  this 
conflict  is  uncertain.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  say  whether  existing  conditions  are  likely  to  pro- 
duce more  men  of  both  morality  and  intelligence  than 
men  who  have  equal  or  even  more  intelligence  and  no 
morality.  On  the  whole,  history  seems  to  mark  a  slow 
improvement  towards  morality  in  the  most  civilised  of 
our  nations ;  but  this  improvement  is  at  the  same  time 
attended  with  tendencies  towards  degeneration,  which 
have  been  already  insisted  upon.  The  only  thing  that 
can  be  stated  with  certainty  is  that  so  long  as  our 
institutions  are  of  a  character,  by  the  competitive 
system,  to  stimulate  selfishness,  the  progress  towards 
unselfishness  is  likely  to  be  exceedingly  slow ;  and  that 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  tendency  to  degeneration 
may  overtake  it. 

Let  us  now  compare  morality  in  its  nature  and  in  its 
consequences  with  religion.  And  first  as  to  its  nature. 
It  has  been  seen  that  morality  is  the  result  of  association ; 
that  it  is  developed  in  the  search  for  happiness;  that 
the  question  if  it  will  prevail  in  the  community  depends 
upon  two  things:  first,  whether  the  majority  of  the 
community  is  persuaded  that  most  satisfaction  can  be 
obtained  by  every  one  seeking  it  for  himself,  or  by  every 
one  seeking  it  for  all.  And,  secondly,  upon  whether  the 
competition  with  other  communities  is  of  a  character, 
by  eliciting  unselfishness,  to  promote  moralit}'-,  or,  by 
eliciting  selfishness,  to  diminish  it. 

Religion,    whatever   may   be   its   origin,    derives   its 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  499 

morality,  not  from  unconscious  social  needs,  but  from  a 
belief  in  the  supernatural.  Religion  teaches  that 
morality  is  an  order  imposed  upon  us  by  divine  power ; 
that  we  owe  obedience  to  this  power;  and  there  is  in 
religious  people  an  aspiration  towards  the  supernatural 
which  inclines  them  to  adopt  its  creed.  The  aim  of 
religion  is  not  happiness,  but  holiness.  Holiness  may 
furnish  a  satisfaction  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  and, 
therefore,  be  a  form  of  selfishness,  just  as  the  satisfac- 
tion derived  from  benefiting  the  community  may  also 
be  regarded  as  a  form  of  selfishness ;  but  it  is  the  kind 
of  satisfaction  that  makes  the  saint  and  the  Sister  of 
Charity.  It  is  not  contended  that  this  form  of  religion, 
or  rather  this  fundamental  basis  of  all  religions,  char- 
acterises all  religious  people;  because,  unfortunately, 
many  people  who  are  termed  religious  are  kept  within 
the  pale  of  the  church  by  mere  superstition  or  fear.  It 
is  believed,  however,  that  the  above  is  a  description  of 
what  is  most  valuable  in  all  religious  creeds  and  of  what 
underlies  them  all. 

Just  as  political  faith  has  been  defined  as  the  delib- 
erate choice  of  the  political  theory  which  is  most  condu- 
cive to  the  social  perfectibility  of  man,  so  religious  faith 
may  be  defined  as  the  deliberate  choice  of  that  moral 
theory  which  is  most  conducive  to  the  individual  per- 
fectibility of  man.  Both  have  in  them  the  idea  of  some 
effort  and  of  some  sacrifice. 

Religious  faith  is  the  subjection  of  human  will  and 
reason  to  the  divine  will  and  the  divine  reason;  and 
is  justified  to  reason  not  because  reason  furnishes  evi- 
dence amounting  to  proof  of  the  existence  of  the  divine, 
for  then  it  would  be  conviction,  not  faith,  but  be- 
cause there  is  evidence  in  favour  of  the  existence  of  the 
divine,  and  not  evidence  amounting  to  proof  against 
this  existence;   and   belief  in  God  and  submission  to 


500  COLLECTIVISM 

Him  is  more  conducive  to  the  individual  perfectibility 
of  man  than  denial. 

The  value  of  religion  in  social  life  receives  a  startling 
support  in  the  fact  that  the  only  communities  that  have 
long  survived  have  been  religious  communities;  the 
Roman  Catholic  communities,  and  particularly  those 
engaged  in  active  philanthropic  work,  as,  for  example, 
the  orders  that  minister  to  the  poor  and  the  sick,  are 
among  those  which  have  shown  most  vitality.  Noyes 
has  written  an  interesting  history  of  a  large  number 
of  the  experiments  at  communal  life  which  were  made  in 
America  during  the  first  part  of  the  century ;  ^  and  it  is 
a  remarkable  fact  that  of  all  these  experiments  the  only 
one  that  has  signally  succeeded  is  one  that  was  founded 
on  religion,  —  the  Shakers.  Of  the  rest,  most  fell  to 
pieces  within  a  few  months ;  and  only  one  or  two  have 
maintained  an  obscure  existence.  It  is  not  easy  to 
argue  about  religion ;  most  men  and  women  are  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  competition  of  life  to  have  much  time  to 
devote  to  religion,  any  more  than  to  politics ;  nor  is  the 
opportunity  given  to  many  of  them  to  come  into  fre- 
quent contact  with  the  saints  produced  in  such  abund- 
ance in  Roman  Catholic  communities.  When  they  do, 
they  are  apt  to  entertain  the  angel  unawares;  or  if 
some  slight  impression  be  made  upon  them,  the  impres- 
sion is  apt  to  disappear  in  the  dust  and  turmoil  of  active 
life.  Religion  is  unfortunately  to-day  suffering  from 
the  discord  produced  by  different  dogmas,  and  much 
weighed  down  by  the  superstition  that  results  probably 
more  from  the  ignorance  of  the  people  than  from  the 
deliberate  intention  of  the  Church.  If,  however,  polit- 
ical students  could  recognise  the  immense  value  of  re- 
ligion once  rescued  from  these  adventitious  impediments 
to  the  making  of  good  citizens,  they  would  not  be  dis- 

1  "History  of  American  Socialisms,"  by  I.  H.  Noyes. 


I 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  501 

posed  to  believe  that  political  problems  can  be  solved 
without  regard  to  religion ;  for  religion  may  turn  out  to 
be  the  most  powerful  factor  for  solving  them. 

Not  only  does  religion  appeal  to  the  disinterested 
motives  of  man,  but  it  confers  upon  him  one  gift  of 
priceless  value,  —  the  gift  of  reverence.  The  morality 
of  the  competitive  system  treats  men  as  Polonius  would 
the  players,  "according  to  their  deserts;"  but  the 
morality  of  religion  would  treat  them,  in  the  words  of 
Hamlet,  "after  our  own  honour  and  dignity."  And  in 
a  republic  the  standard  of  reverence  set  by  religion  is, 
above  all  things,  precious  and  essential.  Bagehot  has 
explained  the  utility  of  the  throne  in  the  respect  it  main- 
tains for  government  in  England.  In  our  country  we 
have  no  throne,  no  fountain  of  honour,  no  respected 
tradition ;  on  the  contrary,  the  license  of  criticism  makes 
our  highest  public  office  a  mark  for  contempt,  and  even 
besmirches  the  fairest  deeds  of  army  and  navy  alike, 
through  the  degenerate  demand  for  sensational  journal- 
ism. Had  we  the  sense  of  our  own  honour  and  dignity 
which  religion  fosters  in  the  doctrine  that  every  man  is 
or  can  become  a  temple  of  God,  we  should,  by  entertain- 
ing respect  for  our  governors,  make  governors  worthy 
of  respect  possible.  To  those  who  desire  to  increase  the 
scope  of  government  for  the  benefit  of  the  masses,  few 
obstacles  seem  so  great  as  the  widespread  contempt  for 
our  governors  that  prevails  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
true  that  our  governors  have  not  always  commanded 
respect;  but  were  the  angel  Gabriel  himself  to  mount 
the  presidential  chair,  he  would  not  escape  calumny. 
No  self-respecting  citizen  accepts  public  office  but  knows 
beforehand  that  calumny  inevitably  awaits  him  there. 

The  contempt  which  the  average  American  feels  for 
his  government  is  a  part  of  that  universal  contempt  which 
curls  the  lip  of  the  agnostic.     If  there  is  no  divine  in 


502  COLLECTIVISM 

the  world,  there  is  no  room  for  reverence ;  for  reverence 
is  the  fruit  of  faith. 

Here,  then,  is  one  of  the  most  priceless  gifts  of  re- 
ligion ;  for  of  all  the  virtues  none  brings  man  nearer  to 
the  divine  than  reverence. 

Man,  then,  is  lifted  above  the  lower  animals  by  two 
distinct  moral  steps :  the  first  is  the  step  from  the  in- 
stinctive morality  of  the  insect  to  the  deliberate  moralitj^ 
of  effort;  the  second  is  from  the  interested  morality 
which  results  from  the  mere  action  of  social  life  to  the 
disinterested  morality  which  is  ordered  by  a  divine 
power.  To  exclude  the  latter  would  be  to  forego  the 
advantages  of  a  superior  ground. 

What,  then,  are  the  conclusions  to  which  we  are  led 
by  a  study  of  government  from  the  moral  point  of  view  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  led  by  it  to  a  distinction  be- 
tween mere  conviction  and  faith ;  and  between  religious 
faith  and  political  faith. 

Of  two  theories,  one  of  which  asserts  the  existence 
and  authority  of  the  divine  and  the  other  denies  it, 
neither  of  which  is  capable  of  absolute  proof  or  absolute 
disproof,  religious  faith  adopts  the  former  because  most 
conducive  to  individual  perfectibility. 

Of  two  theories,  one  of  which  asserts  the  power  of 
man  by  effort  to  resist  the  forces  in  nature  hostile  to 
social  perfectibility,  and  the  other  of  which  denies  or 
ignores  it,  political  faith  adopts  the  former,  because 
more  conducive  to  social  perfectibility. 

In  the  next  place,  we  seem  forbidden  to  shield  our- 
selves behind  the  curtain  of  agnosticism;  we  may  not 
know  as  much  about  the  supernatural  as  some  churches 
assert  they  know,  but  we  do  know  more  about  it  tlian 
the  atheist  or  the  agnostic;  we  know  that  outside  of 
what  we  have  defined  as  nature,  developed,  perhaps,  out 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  503 

of  it,  but  able  in  great  part  to  control  it,  is  the  intelli- 
gence and  will  of  man.  We  know  that  this  intelligence 
and  will,  united  in  the  faculty  called  wisdom,  are  capable 
of  more  and  more  modifying  conditions  of  nature  until 
they  shall  have  reduced  to  a  minimum  the  consequences 
not  only  of  the  inequalities  imposed  upon  man  by  nature, 
but  also  of  those  imposed  upon  him  by  his  own  insti- 
tutions. This  is  the  end  of  justice.  The  attain- 
ment of  this  end  should  be  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
government. 

In  the  third  place,  it  seems  as  though  the  failure  to 
recognise  exactly  what  justice  is,  and,  above  all,  the 
limits  of  its  attainment,  has  given  rise  to  disturbed 
views  of  moral  responsibility ;  so  that  while,  under  the 
influence  of  these  disturbed  views,  we  often  fail  to  do 
our  nearest  and  obvious  duty,  we  are  driven  by  a  guilty 
but  misguided  conscience  to  the  attempted  performance 
of  duties  that  belong  to  others  and  not  to  ourselves. 
This  has  been  called  the  morality  of  compensation,  and 
it  has  been  pointed  out  that  as  long  as  there  was  no 
morality  of  enlightened  justice,  the  morality  of  compen- 
sation was  perhaps  better  than  no  morality  at  all ;  for  it 
keeps  alive  a  conscience  which  may  eventually  put  us 
on  the  right  road. 

In  the  fourth  place,  we  seem  to  have  been  kept  from 
the  right  road  by  the  unfortunate  but  necessary  conflict 
between  science  and  religion.  Science  has  produced  a 
morality  built  on  selfishness,  which,  though  it  might 
eventually,  by  the  principle  of  reaction,  develop  a  high 
order  of  morality,  is  likely  to  do  this  so  slowly  as  to  be 
possibly  overtaken  by  the  tendency  towards  degeneration 
which  accompanies  it. 

Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  proposes  a  morality 
founded  on  divine  sanction,  unhampered  by  stimulus  to 
selfishness,  and,  if  rescued  from  superstition  and  fear,  of 


504  COLLECTIVISM 

priceless  value  to  both  the   individual   and   the  social 
perfectibility  of  man. 

The  conflict  between  science  and  religion,  because 
some  men  are  more  endowed  with  reason  than  with  con- 
science, and  others  more  endowed  with  conscience  than 
with  reason,  is  likely  to  continue  for  many  generations ; 
but,  however  long  this  conflict  must  continue  upon  the 
fields  of  religion  and  science  respectively,  there  is  a 
neutral  field  upon  which  all  men  may  unite.  Upon  this 
field  alone  the  rival  claims  can  be  forgotten  in  the  prac- 
tical work  of  so  framing  our  institutions  as  to  diminish 
the  injustice  and  misery  in  the  world.  And  in  this 
work  religion  combines  with  science  in  two  conclusions 
of  vital  importance:  — 

In  the  first  place,  religion  rebukes  the  impatience  of 
the  egotism  which  lurks  behind  eagerness ;  it  points  out 
that  there  may  be  as  much  injustice  in  too  sudden  a 
change  of  constitution  as  in  too  protracted  a  delay;  and 
that  wisdom  is  bent  more  in  attaining  justice  in  the  end 
than  in  ourselves  figuring  prominently  in  the  attainment 
of  it. 

In  the  second  place,  religion  clothes  the  argument  in 
favour  of  steering  our  course  towards  collectivism  with 
divine  sanction,  for  it  is  the  only  course  that  is  con- 
sistent with  religion.  Every  gospel  that  has  ever  com- 
manded enlightened  assent,  —  the  gospels  of  Confucius, 
of  Buddha,  of  Plato,  of  Mohammed,  of  the  Roman  law, 
of  our  own  law,  and,  above  all,  the  gospel  of  Christ, — 
have  all  taught  the  same  doctrine :  "  Do  unto  others  as 
ye  would  they  should  do  unto  you."  But  ever  since 
the  world  began  we  have  failed  to  practise  the  gospels 
we  have  professed  because  the  necessity  of  self- 
preservation  under  the  economic  institutions  which  have 
prevailed  have  made  the  practice  of  this  gospel  impos- 
sible.    It  is  time,  at  last,  that  this  inconsistency  be  re- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  505 

moved,  and  that  we  be  rescued,  not  only  from  injustice, 
but  from  hypocrisy,  by  framing  institutions  under  which 
alone  we  can  dispense  with  both. 

§  4,    Political  View  of  Collectivism 

All  the  points  of  view  from  which  we  have  heretofore 
studied  problems  of  government  converge  in  a  last,  most 
comprehensive  and  most  important  of  them  all,  the 
political. 

It  may  be  contended  that,  however  rational  and  moral 
collectivism  may  be,  however  prudent  its  study  and 
practical  its  ultimate  end,  all  these  considerations  go  for 
nothing,  or  for  very  little,  to  the  statesman,  unless  it 
can  be  shown  that  collectivism  has  come  within  the 
range  of  practical  politics.  Mankind  is  striving  vaguely 
to  attain  many  ideals  of  life  and  conduct  with  which  the 
statesman,  as  such,  has  little  or  nothing  to  do,  because, 
desirable  as  these  ideals  may  be,  they  are  either  desired 
only  by  a  few  or  not  sufficiently  desired  by  all  to  become 
the  basis  of  a  political  programme. 

The  question  whether  a  particular  measure  or  group 
of  measures  comes  within  the  range  of  practical  politics 
is  complicated. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  when  Turgot,  in  1776,  abol- 
ished the  guilds  in  France,  the  time  had  come  when  the 
guilds  were  no  longer  fit  to  exercise  the  power  which 
they  enjoyed.  In  this  sense  the  measure  was  oppor- 
tune ;  but  Turgot  did  not  take  sufficient  account  of  the 
power  of  the  guilds,  and  the  result  was  that  in  those 
cities  where  they  were  most  powerful  and  the  need  of 
their  abolition,  therefore,  the  most  urgent,  the  edict 
abolishing  them  was  practically  disregarded;  in  this 
case,  though  the  measure  was  opportune,  the  State  had 
not  the  power  to  enforce  it. 


506  COLLECTIVISM 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  Leo  the  Philosopher  put 
an  end  to  all  municipal  franchises  because,  as  he  said, 
they  no  longer  had  any  reason  for  existence,  exactly  the 
opposite  conditions  are  observable.  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  a  measure  more  inopportune,  for  his- 
tory shows  that  the  advance  of  civilisation  has  in  large 
part  depended  upon  the  very  municipal  franchises  which 
Leo  thought  it  useless  any  longer  to  maintain ;  but,  how- 
ever inopportune  the  measure,  the  State  had  at  the 
time  the  power  to  enforce  it,  and  municipal  develop- 
ment, which  turned  out  later  to  be  the  source  of  all 
our  liberties,  was  for  the  time  arrested. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  Alexander  put  an  end 
to  serfdom  in  Russia,  he  enacted  a  measure  which  was 
not  only  opportune,  but  that  he  had  the  power  to 
enforce. 

In  these  three  examples  we  find  illustrations  of  two  of 
the  elements  which  must  concur  in  order  to  bring  a 
measure  within  the  range  of  practical  politics ;  it  must, 
in  the  first  place,  be  opportune,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
the  State  must  have  power  to  enforce  it. 

These  are  not,  however,  the  only  elements  which  have 
to  be  considered  in  the  connection.  Statesmen  are  not 
always  masters  of  the  measures  which  they  would  push 
forward;  for  an  active,  small,  aggressive  minority  may 
often  bring  before  the  public  measures  for  which  the 
community  is  not  yet  ripe.  Indeed,  this  is  the  contin- 
gency which  is  likely  to  occasion  statesmen  the  greatest 
embarrassment;  for,  while  they  themselves  may  be  per- 
suaded of  the  wisdom  of  a  measure,  it  may  also  be  clear 
that  the  community  is  not  prepared  for  it;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  while  it  may  be  clear  that  the  community 
desires  a  measure,  it  may  be  equally  certain  that  the 
measure  is  not  expedient. 

An  example  of  this  embarrassment  is  to  be  found  in 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  507 

recent  legislation  on  Ireland.  The  action  of  both  the 
liberal  and  the  conservative  parties  leaves  little  reason 
to  doubt  that  they  both  long  ago  recognised  the  necessity 
of  remedial  legislation  in  Ireland;  neither  of  them, 
however,  seriously  undertook  legislation  upon  Irish 
matters  until  the  Irish  members  of  Parliament,  under 
the  leadership  of  Parnell,  constituted  a  sufficiently 
important  body  to  hold  a  balance  of  power.  The  Irish 
question,  therefore,  was  not  submitted  to  the  nation 
through  the  wisdom  of  a  statesman ;  it  was  dragged 
into  the  political  arena  through  the  political  genius  of 
Parnell ;  and  the  question  of  relief  to  be  given  to  Ireland 
became  not  a  question  of  political  morality  or  wisdom, 
but  a  factional  issue  on  which  various  interests,  in  large 
part  selfish,  were  arraigned  on  either  side. 

This  brings  us  to  an  important  distinction  between 
the  conditions  under  which  legislation  takes  place  under 
more  or  less  absolute  monarchy  and  those  under  which 
it  takes  place  in  a  popular  government  under  the  com- 
petitive system.  Under  an  absolute  monarchy  measures 
which  recommend  themselves  by  their  morality  are  more 
likely  to  be  enacted  as  such  by  a  just  king  than  under 
a  popular  government;  because,  whatever  may  be  the 
theory  of  popular  government,  practice  seems  to  demon- 
strate that  legislation  in  the  latter  depends  not  so  much 
upon  its  wisdom  as  upon  the  capacity  for  aggressive 
political  action  which  those  who  are  urging  it  possess. 
Thus  the  authors  of  "Industrial  Democracy"  point  out 
(page  365)  that  "the  factory  legislation  which  each 
trade  has  obtained  has,  during  the  past  twenty  years, 
varied  in  stringency  and  effectiveness,  not  according  to 
the  misery  of  the  workers  or  the  profitableness  of  the 
enterprise,  but  almost  exactly  with  the  amount  of  money 
which  the  several  unions  have  expended  on  official  and 
legal  assistance. " 


508  COLLECTIVISM 

Not  only  is  this  system  profoundly  bad  in  principle, 
inasmuch  as  it  leaves  legislation  to  the  initiative  of  sel- 
iishness  rather  than  to  that  of  wisdom,  but  the  effect  of 
it  is  deplorable,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  lack  of  consistency 
in  the  legislation  to  which  it  gives  rise.  The  authors 
of  "Industrial  Democracy"  have  collected  the  cases  in 
which  the  British  Parliament  has  of  late  dealt  with  the 
question  of  vested  interests,  and  they  show  not  only  a 
real  divergence  between  the  plans  adopted  in  different 
cases,  but  an  utter  lack  of  any  principle  which  could 
reconcile    this   divergence.  ^     In    our    own    legislation 

1  "  The  action  of  the  English  legislature  in  awarding  compensation  for 
disturbance  of  vested  interests  has,  indeed,  been  capricious  in  the  extreme, 
depending,  perhaps,  on  the  momentary  political  influence  of  the  class  con- 
cerned. Thus,  no  compensation  was  given  to  the  large  class  of  lottery- 
keepers  and  their  servants,  either  for  loss  of  capital  or  loss  of  occupation, 
when  private  lotteries  were,  in  1698,  suddenly  prohibited.  The  shipowners 
and  merchants  who  had  invested  a  large  capital  in  specially  designed  slave- 
carrying  ships  received  no  compensation  when  the  slave  trade  was  abol- 
ished in  1807.  On  the  other  hand,  when,  about  1834,  the  slaves  in  the 
British  colonies  were  converted  into  indentured  servants,  twenty  millions 
sterling  were  voted  to  the  owners,  though  no  other  country  before  or  after 
has  taken  this  course.  The  owners  of  Irish  Parliamentary  boroughs  were 
compensated  when  the  Union  deprived  them  of  these  seats,  but  the  owners 
of  English  Parliamentary  boroughs,  which  had  equally  been  recognised 
sources  of  income,  received  nothing  when  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  swept 
them  away.  In  our  own  day,  when  a  town  council  sets  up  its  own  works, 
and  uses  public  funds  to  dispense  altogether  with  its  former  contractors, 
it  pays  them  no  compensation  for  loss  of  capital  or  livelihood.  But  if  the 
new  workshops  so  much  as  darken  the  view  from  the  contractor's  windows, 
the  town  must  pay  damages.  Parliament  gives  public  authorities  full 
power  to  ruin,  if  they  can,  the  ])rivate  owners  of  existing  gas-works  by 
setting  up  public  electric  lighting  works,  and  even  to  destroy  the  business 
of  joint-stock  cemeteries  by  starting  public  burial-grounds.  But  the 
House  of  Commons  has  jealously  refused  to  permit  any  town  council  to 
put  up  gas-works  of  its  own  whilst  any  private  gas-works  are  in  the 
field  as  opponents  ;  or  even  to  sink  its  own  wells  to  get  a  new  and  en- 
tirely different  supply  of  water  for  the  public,  without  first  fully  compen- 
sating any  existing  water  compan}',  not  for  taking  away  any  land,  works, 
or  water,  or  infringing  any  monopoly  rights,  but  simply  for  loss  of  income. 
Whether  the  holder  of  an  annually  granted  terminable  license  to  sell 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  509 

vested  interests  are  protected  by  a  clause  in  the  United 
States  Constitution ;  but  this  clause  has  been  interpreted 
so  variously  that  it  is  difficult  to  state  positively  in 
advance  what  the  Supreme  Court  will  decide  is  a  vested 
interest  which  must  be  protected,  and  what  an  interest 
which  need  not  be  respected.  The  severest  criticism, 
however,  that  can  be  made  upon  this  provision  in  our 
Constitution  is  that  in  spite  of  its  admitted  reasonable- 
ness and  justice,  if  any  part  of  our  community  suffered 
under  the  disadvantages  under  which  Ireland  has  so 
long  laboured,  this  clause  in  our  Constitution  would 
make  it  impossible  for  us  to  remove  them;  in  other 
words,  the  statutes  which  even  the  Conservative  party 
in  England  have  thought  it  right  and  necessary  to  enact 
for  the  relief  of  distressed  Ireland  would  in  the 
United  States,  under  this  clause,  be  impossible  because 
unconstitutional. 

Volumes  might  be  written  regarding  the  want  of 
any  guiding  principle  in  the  legislation  of  our  respec- 
tive States  so  far  as  the  element  of  justice  is  concerned. 
If  the  British  Parliament,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  corrujition,  is  vacillating  as  regards 
vested  interests,  how  much  more  vacillating  must  be 
State  legislatures,  which  are  in  large  part  creatures  of 
private  corporations. 

But  it  is  not  the  object  of  this  book  to  attempt  to  map 
out  a  political  campaign  for  any  particular  country.  Its 
object  has  been  rather  to  lay  down  the  fundamental 
principle  of  government,  to  establish  clearly  what  justice 
is,  to  mark  out  the  limits  which  nature  opposes  to  polit- 
ical action,  the  evil  forces  in  nature  with  which  politics 
are  not  directly  concerned  and  cannot  hope  directly  to 

intoxicating  liquors  would  or  would  not  be  equitably  entitled  to  compen- 
sation if  Parliament  decided  for  the  future  not  to  renew  it  is  a  hotly 
contested  question." 


510  COLLECTIVISM 

resist;  the  evil  forces,  on  the  other  hand,  with  which 
man  has  already  begun  an  almost  unconscious  warfare, 
and  which  he  can,  by  a  sufficiently  deliberate  effort,  in 
great  part  subdue;  and,  lastly,  the  evil  forces  which 
have  resulted  from  man's  own  blundering  methods,  and 
which  might,  by  taking  due  account  of  the  time  neces- 
sary therefor,  be  ultimately  disposed  of  altogether. 

In  the  course  of  these  studies,  the  selfishness  which 
underlies  the  competitive  system  has  been  shown  to 
be  the  enemy  which  appropriates  every  institution,  how- 
ever high  at  the  outset  the  ideal  upon  which  it  is  organ- 
ised, to  its  own  base  use ;  it  has  been  shown  that  this 
selfishness  can  be  removed  only  under  a  form  of  govern- 
ment which  would  slowly  substitute  co-operation  for 
the  present  competitive  system ;  that  such  a  government, 
however  unfitted  to  man  in  his  present  condition  of  igno- 
rance and  self-absorption,  might  become  eventually  fitted 
to  him  in  proportion  as  ignorance  was  dissipated  and 
self-absorption  yielded  to  the  recognition  that  the  high- 
est happiness  is  to  be  obtained,  not  out  of  private  greed, 
but  rather  through  the  common  good.  Could  any  sub- 
stantial part  of  the  people  become  persuaded  of  these 
things,  then  it  is  conceivable  that  slowly  there  might 
rise  among  statesmen  a  political  standard  by  which 
the  various  measures  proposed  for  enactment  could  be 
tested;  so  that  instead  of  leaving  remedial  legislation 
to  the  selfish  aggressiveness  which  now  seems  to  deter- 
mine it,  and  thus  becoming  a  prey,  like  a  rudderless  ship, 
to  every  wind  that  blows,  we  may,  on  the  contrary,  have 
before  us  definite  sailing-orders,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  port, 
however  distant,  for  which  we  are  making,  and  towards 
which,  however  devious  our  path,  we  may  still,  persist- 
ently, with  deliberation  and  increasing  wisdom,  direct 
ourselves. 

It  would  not  be  consistent  with  the  general  lines  of 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  511 

this  work  to  enter  into  the  particular  measures  which  it 
would  be  wisest  immediately  to  adopt  with  a  view  to 
the  ultimate  realisation  of  a  collectivist  form  of  govern- 
ment. In  the  first  place,  this  question  is  not  so  much 
one  of  principle  as  of  detail;  in  the  second  place,  the 
conditions  presented  in  every  country  differ  so  widely 
that  it  would  be  imjDossible  to  propose  a  general  scheme 
that  would  be  fitted  to  all.  This  becomes  clear  the 
moment  we  consider  the  conditions  which  present  them- 
selves respectively  in  this  connection  in  England  and  in 
the  United  States.  In  England  the  working  population 
is  far  more  homogeneous  than  in  our  country;  this 
has  enabled  large  groups  of  workingmen  in  England  to 
come  to  a  common  understanding  regarding  their  aims 
and  the  best  methods  for  securing  these  aims ;  whereas 
in  the  United  States  divergencies  of  opinion  following 
divergencies  of  temperament  and  nationality  have  made 
this  concurrence  of  opinion  far  less  complete  and  far  less 
effectual.  This  must  not  be  understood  to  imply  that 
there  is  even  in  England  a  complete  concurrence  of 
opinion;  on  the  contrary,  different  trade  unions  adopt 
widely  different  and  even  inconsistent  policies;  thus, 
for  example,  the  policy  of  the  boiler-makers  in  re- 
stricting the  trade  to  those  who  have  served  an  appren- 
ticeship is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  policy  of  the 
cotton  trade  unions  in  keeping  the  trade  open  to  ten 
times  more  applicants  than  the  industry  can  ultimately 
support.  All  that  is  meant  to  convey  is  that  very 
large  groups,  such  as  the  cotton  and  mining  industries, 
have  succeeded  in  establishing  a  common  rule,  and  have 
done  this  through  an  organisation  which,  though  neces- 
sarily complicated,  is  amazing  in  its  efficiency.  It  has 
been  already  pointed  out  that  in  so  doing  they  have 
gone  so  far  towards  solving  the  great  political  question 
bow  best  to  secure  efficient  administration  and  popular 


512  COLLECTIVISM 

control ;  and  their  experience,  not  only  in  trade  unions, 
but  in  co-operation,  has  contributed  to  furnish  them  a 
valuable  education. 

If,  now,  we  turn  to  the  United  States,  we  find  a 
totally  different  condition  of  things:  while  there  are 
undoubtedly  powerful  and  well-organised  trade  unions 
in  our  country,  there  is  not  one  that  can  relatively  com- 
pare in  magnitude  and  efficiency  to  that  of  the  cotton 
operatives  in  England.  Not  only  do  differences  in 
nationality  and  temperament  tend  to  make  this  difficult, 
but  the  very  size  of  our  country  is  an  obstacle  to  effec- 
tual organisation.  A  trade  union,  in  order  to  be  effi- 
cient, ought  to  cover  the  entire  field  of  competition, 
and  this  field  in  the  United  States  often  coincides  with 
its  entire  territory.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that 
although  many  trade  unions  in  the  United  States  are 
composed  of  as  efficient  and  as  intelligent  workingmen 
as  any  trade  union  in  Great  Britain,  the  whole  mass  of 
the  workingmen  in  the  United  States  are  less  prepared 
by  industrial  experience  and  sagacity  for  the  adoption 
of  measures  looking  towards  collectivism  than  their 
brethren  in  England. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  United  States  have  an  im- 
mense advantage  over  England  in  another  respect :  the 
very  vastness  of  the  territory,  while  it  renders  powerful 
trade  unions  difficult,  makes  ultimate  adoption  of  collec- 
tivism far  more  easy;  for,  unless  the  country  is  driven 
by  military  enthusiasm  to  colonial  expansion,  it  is  by  its 
very  size  and  situation  entirely  self-supporting  and 
therefore  outside  of  the  necessity  of  involving  itself  in 
the  affairs  of  other  nations. 

England,  on  the  other  hand,  because  her  power  is  in 
great  part  colonial,  and  because  she  is  driven  by  vast 
possessions  beyond  the  sea  to  the  protection  of  those 
possessions  against  the  perpetual  envy  of  her  neighbours, 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  513 

is  committed  to  perpetual  conflict;  and,  as  has  been 
already  pointed  out,  the  battle  of  words  which  charac- 
terises diplomacy  may  in  the  end  be  more  demoralising 
to  a  nation  than  the  battle  of  lives  which  characterises 
the  condition  of  actual  war.  But  the  main  object  of 
collectivism  from  a  moral  point  of  view  is  to  render  our 
institutions  consistent  with  our  professions,  so  that  a 
man  may  practise  in  his  life  the  code  of  morality  which 
he  professes  in  his  home ;  in  other  words,  its  aim  is  to 
eliminate  battle  from  the  every-day  life  of  every  indi- 
vidual in  the  State,  substituting  for  the  selfish  conflict 
of  competition  the  unselfish  considerateness  of  co- 
operation; it  is  in  the  subjective  influence  of  this 
perpetual  appeal  to  his  affections,  rather  than  to  his 
egotism,  that  collectivism  is  believed  to  possess  so  many 
advantages  over  our  present  system.  But  if  men,  while 
at  home  engaged  in  mutually  helping  one  another,  are 
driven  by  competition  outside  the  border  to  duplicity, 
stratagem,  and  violence,  the  beneficial  effect  of  collec- 
tivism at  home  will  be  in  great  part  counteracted  by  the 
injurious  efl:ect  of  competition  abroad;  in  other  words, 
one  of  the  chief  jewels  of  collectivism  —  consistency  — 
will  be  wanting. 

It  seems  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  conditions  pre- 
sented by  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  respec- 
tively are  so  different  that  no  programme  fitted  to  one 
could  be  fitted  to  the  other;  and  that  every  nation, 
therefore,  adopting  the  creed  of  collectivism,  must  be 
allowed  to  work  out  its  own  programme  for  itself. 

Again,  the  measures  which  will  be  fitting  for  a  nation 
in  one  phase  of  its  existence  may  be  totally  unfitted  to 
it  in  another.  Nations  j)ass  through  moods  as  various 
as  those  of  a  neurotic  subject,  who,  when  the  wind  is 
north-northwest,  is  as  mad  as  a  March  hare,  but,  when 
it  is  southerly,  can  tell  a  hawk  from  a  hand-saw.     While 

33 


514  COLLECTIVISM 

a  nation  is  inflamed  by  military  success  into  passion 
for  foreign  conquest,  it  would  be  idle  to  speak  of  a  collec- 
tivist  programme  at  all;  or  as  long  as  the  country  is 
possessed  by  the  notion,  however  erroneous,  that  every 
individual  in  it  can  immediately  be  made  rich  and  pros- 
perous by  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  it  would  seem  vain 
to  propose  a  programme  that  only  promises  prosperity 
after  the  lives  of  many  generations.  Men  anxious  to  be 
rich  themselves  are  not  willing  to  entertain  a  doctrine 
that  offers  them  only  a  crumb  of  comfort  and  reserves 
the  loaves  and  fishes  for  children  yet  unborn.  Indeed, 
in  such  a  country  as  the  United  States  the  question  is 
not  only  one  of  opportuneness,  but  also  one  of  locality. 
Measures  that  might  be  seriously  considered  in  New 
York  would  probably  be  rejected  with  contempt  in 
Arizona;  and  those  which  might  be  pushed  to  the  front 
with  enthusiasm  in  Texas  would  be  regarded  as  revolu- 
tionary in  Maine. 

And  so  it  will  be  seen  that  the  character  of  a  collectiv- 
ist  programme  will  differ  in  every  year  for  every  nation, 
and  in  some  nations  will  differ  in  its  different  parts. 

Nor  must  it  be  imagined  that  a  collectivist  programme 
is  necessarily  a  radical  one.  On  the  contraiy,  in  some 
respects,  if  controlled  by  wisdom,  it  would  seem  to  be 
an  extremely  conservative  one.  For  example,  there  are 
few  measures  which  the  radical  or  popular  party  in  the 
United  States  push  more  persistently  and  unanimously 
to  the  front  than  the  referendum. ^  But  the  referendum, 
while  of  value  in  certain  cases,  has  been  found  by  some 
English  trade  unions  to  be  subversive  of  the  very  popu- 
lar control  which  its  promoters  believed  it  would  secure. ^ 

^  The  Populist  party,  which  has  always  favoured  the  referendum,  has 
now  made  it  the  principal  plank  in  its  platform. 

2  In  Switzerland  the  referendum  has  sometimes  defeated  popular 
measures  voted  by  the  legislature. 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  515 

And  yet  it  would  be  a  task  of  the  greatest  magnitude 
to  persuade  the  popular  party  in  the  United  States  that 
an  unlimited  use  of  the  referendum  should  not  imme- 
diately form  part  of  the  collectivist  programme.  This 
cannot  but  accentuate  the  importance  of  a  careful  study 
of  collectivism,  not  only  by  those  who  seem  to  have  most 
interest  in  advocating,  but  also  by  those  whose  interest 
it  may  seem  to  Ije  to  resist  it.  For  it  may  turn  out  that 
an  intelligent  collectivist  programme  is  not  only  in  the 
end,  but  even  immediately,  more  conservative  and  more 
in  the  interest  of  order  than  the  wholesale  opposition 
to  all  popular  measures  which  characterise  the  wealthy 
element  in  our  community  to-day. 

We  have  seen  that  a  political  programme  looking  to 
social  improvement  is  essentially  a  question  of  place  and 
time ;  and  that  it  is  not  necessarily  a  radical  one,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  must,  in  order  to  succeed,  be  in  some 
respects  highly  conservative. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  compendiously  the  general  con- 
clusions on  this  whole  subject  to  which  the  arguments 
of  this  book  tend  to  lead.  The  political  view  has  been 
left  to  the  last  because  it  not  only  comes  last  in  order 
of  logic,  but  deserves  the  last  word  on  account  of  its 
consummate  importance.  The  one  thing  we  all  desire 
in  this  world  is  to  secure  happiness.  It  seems  probable 
that  nothing  within  the  scope  of  human  effort  contrib- 
utes so  much  to  this  end  as  government ;  and  yet  gov- 
ernment is  probably  the  last  thing  of  which  the  vast 
majority  in  pursuit  of  happiness  think.  It  is  also 
probable  that  nothing  within  the  scope  of  human  effort 
contributes  so  much  to  morality  as  government;  and 
yet  one  of  the  greatest  steps  in  advance  believed  in  the 
United  States  to  have  been  made  in  modern  civilisation 
is  the  separation  of  Church  from  State. 

These  two   considerations   alone   ought,    if   true,   to 


516  COLLECTIVISM 

justify  the  importance  of  studying  what  government  is, 
and  how  it  can  be  made  to  bear  upon  the  two  greatest 
problems  of  the  race,  —  the  problem  of  human  happiness 
and  the  problem  of  human  morality.  Of  still  more  im- 
portance will  this  study  become  if  it  turns  out  that  both 
these  problems  are  solved,  or  can  only  be  solved,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  government.  With  a  view  to 
bringing  this  home,  let  us  briefly  review  the  conclusions 
to  which  from  different  points  of  view  we  have  been 
respectively  led. 

Government  is  the  law  of  society. 

There  are  three  great  branches  of  knowledge  to  which 
we  can  go  for  light  upon  this  law :  — 

We  can  go  to  science  for  instruction  as  to  what 
human  society  is,  and  particularly  as  to  the  fundamen- 
tal and  disputed  question  whether  society  is  an  organism 
or  not.  Science  alone  can  tell  us  the  law  of  .social  de- 
velopment and  its  relation  to  the  law  of  natural  selection 
so  persistently  misunderstood  under  the  name  "evolu- 
tion." Science,  too,  can  tell  us  how  the  human  machine 
is  constructed  so  that  we  may  understand  the  social 
laws  under  which  it  operates.^ 

We  must  go  to  history  in  order  to  learn  the  actual 
steps  which  human  society  has  taken  in  advancing  from 
barbarism  to  our  present  civilisation;  for  it  is  history 
which  furnishes  us  the  experience  of  the  race,  —  the 
facts  from  which  alone  a  sound  political  theory  can  be 
drawn.  2 

^  This  study  was  made  iu  book  ii.,  entitled  "Evolution,"  of  vol.  i.  p. 
53,  and  was  continued  in  the  present  volume,  book  i.  oh.  iv.,  "The 
So-Called  Social  Mind." 

2  This  study  was  made  in  chapter  iv.,  entitled  "  Human  Evolution  in 
its  Relation  to  Government,"  of  book  ii.  vol.  i.  (p.  175),  and  was 
continued  in  the  present  volume,  book  i.  ch.  ii.,  entitled  "Individualism 
in  History." 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  517 

Lastly,  we  must  go  to  ethics  in  order  to  learn  what 
government  ought  to  be,  as  distinguished  from  what  it 
has  been.  ^ 

A  study  of  government,  therefore,  includes  roughly 
three  different  investigations:  the  scientific  investi- 
gation, what  society  in  view  of  the  nature  of  man  tends 
to  be ;  the  historical  investigation,  what  society  in  the 
experience  of  man  actually  has  been;  and  the  ethical 
investigation,  what  society  under  the  rules  of  morality 
ought  to  be. 

These  three  investigations  ought  to  furnish  us  with 
some  answer  to  the  practical  political  question,  — 
what  society  can  be. 

It  is  impossible  to  study  the  facts  and  conclusions 
regarding  sociology,  which  belong  to  science,  history, 
and  religion,  apart;  the  moment  a  social  influence  is 
isolated,  it  ceases  to  operate  in  the  same  way  as  it 
operates  when  a  part  of  the  social  nexus.  An  effort  to 
study  a  particular  social  influence  apart  from  the  other 
influences  at  work  in  the  social  field  is  something  like 
an  effort  to  study  the  functioning  of  a  particular  organ 
in  a  living  body;  the  moment  the  function  is  isolated 
it  ceases  to  operate  in  a  normal  manner.  In  the  same 
way  we  cannot  study  religion  apart  from  history,  nor 
history  apart  from  religion,  nor  political  science  apart 
from  either.  It  is,  perhaps,  because  some  scientific  men 
and  some  religious  men  have  endeavoured  to  do  this  that 
they  have  been  condemned  to  irreconcilable  and  irre- 
sponsive conflict. 

And  the  confusion  which  arises  from  this  conflict  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  men  not  only  differ  with  one  another 
regarding  the  aims  of  government,  but  also  regarding 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  attaining   our  respective 

1  This  has  been  attempted  in  the  chapters  on  Justice  (vol.  i.  book  iii. 
eh.  iii.  p.  275),  and  Collectivism  (vol.  ii.  book  ii.). 


518  COLLECTIVISM 

aims.  For  example,  religion  sets  up  holiness  as  the 
aim  of  human  life,  and  holiness  involves  absolute  jus- 
tice ;  science  responds  that  the  real  aim  of  humanity  is 
happiness ;  that  the  struggle  for  happiness  in  social  life 
has  resulted  in  morality,  and  this  struggle  can  be  de- 
pended upon  to  develop  sentiments  of  moralit}^  so  that 
injustice  will  eventually  disappear.  According  to  the 
philosophy  of  science,  therefore,  as  interpreted  by  Her- 
bert Spencer,  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  allow  selfishness  to 
operate,  and  the  general  tendency  of  selfishness  enlight- 
ened by  intelligence  will  be  to  substitute  for  the  selfish- 
ness which  seeks  happiness  at  the  expense  of  others 
what  we  have  called  the  unselfishness  which  seeks  hap- 
piness only  through  the  happiness  of  others.  Science 
also  points  out  that  there  are  natural  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  perfect  justice  which  religion  makes  a  mistake 
in  ignoring. 

There  is  therefore  at  the  very  outset  a  fundamental 
difference  of  opinion  between  science  and  religion  as  to 
the  aim  of  government. 

If,  now,  we  look  at  the  difficulties  which  stand  in  the 
way  both  of  the  morality  taught  by  science  and  of  that 
ordered  by  religion,  we  find  again  not  only  a  radical 
difference  of  opinion  between  science  and  religion,  but 
a  still  more  radical  difference  of  opinion  between  differ- 
ent groups  in  the  religious  world.  It  is  not,  however, 
easy  to  state  just  what  religion  regards  as  the  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  human  perfection,  because  different 
creeds  attach  different  importance  to  different  factors 
in  the  problem.  With  some  it  is  absence  of  faith; 
with  others  it  is  absence  of  good  works;  while  with 
others  it  is  absence  of  grace:  all  the  difficulties  dwelt 
upon  by  religion  being  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
operation  of  the  divine  power  on  the  human  heart. 
Science  takes  a  radically  opposite  view  of  the  difficul- 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  519 

ties  in  the  way  of  justice :  it  studies  the  constitution  of 
man  as  a  fact,  and  the  history  of  man  far  back  into  the 
incalculable  recesses  of  geologic  time;  it  studies  the 
human  body  as  it  is  now  constructed, — the  human  brain; 
its  habits,  and  the  laws  under  which  it  operates;  it 
studies,  above  all,  the  environment  with  which  nature 
furnished  man  at  the  outset,  and  the  environment  which 
man  has  made  for  himself. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  divine  element  is  elim- 
inated altogether.  Science  ignores  the  source  whence 
man  derives  his  life  and  power,  and  studies  merely  the 
laws  of  his  life  and  the  laws  of  his  power.  And  as  to 
the  operation  of  these  laws,  scientific  men  radically 
differ;  some  regarding  man  as  the  necessary  result  of  a 
natural  environment  over  which  he  has  ]3ractically  no 
control,  and  the  other  regarding  him  as  consciously 
capable  of  creating  a  human  environment  opposite  in  its 
character  to  that  furnished  by  nature  and  over  which 
he  may  eventually  have  an  almost  complete  control. 
The  conclusions  arrived  at  by  these  two  schools  are 
diametrically  opposed  to  one  another,  as  they  logically 
should  be.  The  first  school  believes  in  the  laissez  /aire 
principle,  and  in  leaving  evolution  to  do  of  itself  the 
work  of  improvement,  regardless  of  the  possible  risk  of 
degeneration,  and,  trusting  in  the  overpowering  suprem- 
acy of  natural  laws  over  human  interference,  demand 
that  this  interference  be  the  least  possible,  —  that  is  to 
say,  maintain  that  the  best  government  is  the  govern- 
ment that  governs  least.  The  other  school,  on  the  con- 
trary, claims  that  the  first  err  in  the  statement  of  facts ; 
that  the  human  environment  is  not  identical  with  the 
natural  environment ;  that  man,  ever  since  he  emerged 
from  the  caves  of  the  Dordogne,  has  been  ceaselessly 
engaged  in  modifying  his  environment,  and  has  now  so 
modified  it  that  in  many  respects  it  is  diametrically  oppo- 


520  COLLECTIVISM 

site  to  that  which  was  originally  furnished  him  by  nature. 
This  school  admits  that  morality  has  been  slowly  devel- 
oped by  the  social  life  of  man,  and  that  this  morality 
shows  hopeful  signs  of  further  development;  but  it  also 
points  out  that  the  artificial  environment  created  by 
man  has  in  its  interference  with  nature  been  not  alto- 
gether wise;  that  while  it  has  created  a  developing 
morality  it  has  at  the  same  time  created  conditions 
under  which  degeneration  may  take  place  at  a  more  rapid 
rate  than  improvement.  It  insists  that  so  long  as  moral 
development  is  left  in  the  charge  of  selfishness  it  is 
likely  to  be  hopelessly  slow ;  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
reason  why  it  should  be  left  to  this  treacherous  prin- 
ciple ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  man  is  capable,  by  wisely 
directed  effort,  of  framing  his  institutions  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  diminish  the  operation  of  selfishness  instead 
of  stimulating  it. 

Upon  the  choice  between  these  two  schools  depends 
the  fundamental  question  whether  government  sliall 
undertake  deliberately  to  create  a  wholesome  environ- 
ment, or  whether,  according  to  the  Spencerian  method, 
government  shall,  by  effacing  itself  to  the  utmost  pos- 
sible, leave  the  development  of  morality  to  the  uncon- 
trolled action  of  human  selfishness.  An  attempt  has 
been  made  in  this  book  to  show  that  the  real  enemies 
of  human  justice  are  the  very  inequalities  of  nature 
upon  which  Spencer  depends  for  the  agony  through 
which,  according  to  him,  human  development  is  slowly 
to  take  place.  These  natural  inequalities  man  has 
clearly  already  comljated  by  taking  the  control  of  the 
government  out  of  the  hands  of  the  muscularl}^  strong 
but  intellectually  weak,  and  bestowing  it  upon  those 
who  are  intellectually  strong  but  muscularly  weak.  In 
the  process  of  effecting  this  change  man  has  created  a 
new  inequality  unknown  to  nature,  —  that  is  to  say,  the 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  521 

one  that  separates  the  rich  from  the  poor.  This  new 
inequality,  which  results  from  the  institution  of  pri- 
vate property,  though  a  necessary  phase  through  which 
humanity  had  apparently  to  pass,  has  given  a  character 
to  the  human  environment  which  has  a  deplorable  effect 
upon  type.  Both  scientific  schools  admit  the  influence 
of  environment  upon  type;  that  if  the  environment  is 
noble  the  type  will  be  noble,  whereas  if  the  environ- 
ment is  base  the  type  will  be  base.  It  seems  difficult 
for  any  one  to  deny  that  the  pursuit  of  wealth  tends 
to  produce  a  sordid  type,  nor  does  any  scientific  man 
deny  that  the  existing  struggle  for  life  as  determined 
by  the  pursuit  of  wealth  tends  to  create  infertility  in  the 
intellectual  type  and  a  fertility  of  despair  in  the  type 
which  is  unintellectual.  Science  without  a  dissenting 
voice  recognises  the  immense  slowness  with  which  func- 
tion adapts  itself  to  environment,  the  destruction  which 
tends  to  accompany  rapid  changes,  and  the  necessity, 
therefore,  of  patience  in  any  modification  of  environment 
which  depends  for  its  success  upon  the  slow  modification 
of  type  thereto. 

At  this  point  history  can  be  advantageously  invoked 
for  the  light  it  throws  on  human  development,  on  the 
extreme  slowness  with  which  this  development  advances, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  it  disappears.  There  is 
not  a  XJage  in  the  whole  of  human  histor}'^  which  does  not 
illustrate  the  perpetual  tendency  of  selfishness  to  drag 
down  high  ideals  of  government  and  to  appropriate 
them  to  the  use  of  a  selfish  minority.  This  subject  has 
been  already  once  recapitulated ;  it  seems  unnecessary, 
therefore,  to  do  more  than  merely  recall  its  conclusions 
in  support  of  the  general  argument  of  science.  We 
have  seen  how  humanity  has  stumbled  round  a  vicious 
circle  from  the  tyranny  of  one  group  to  the  tyranny  of 


522  COLLECTIVISM 

another  while  civilisation  after  civilisation  has  passed 
away.     The  disappearance  of  the  Assyrian,   Egyptian, 
and  Roman  Empires  ought  to  be  warning  enough  to  us 
that  no  civilisation  is  beyond  the  possibility  of  decay. 
If  a  note  of  warning  may,  in  view  of  the  immense  devel- 
opment of  social  progress,  seem  groundless  now,  it  may 
not  be  unwise  to  consider   the    mockery  which  would 
have  greeted  a  prophet   in  the  reign  of  Rameses  who 
should  have  foretold  that  the  body  of  this  mighty  con- 
queror would  not  for  ever  remain  in  the  imperishable 
dwelling  prepared  for  it,  but  would  one  day  be  exposed 
in  a  glass  case  to  the  idle  curiosity  of  Cook  tourists  in 
a  modern  museum ;  or  a  later  seer  who  should  foretell 
that  the  mighty  palace  of  Augustus  was  destined  to  dis- 
appear, and  that  the  very  record  of  it  and  of  his  empire 
would  be  saved  only  through  the  industry  of  the  de- 
spised Nazarenes.     This  would  have  seemed  as  improb- 
able  then   as   it   may   seem  improbable  now   that  our 
civilisation,  planted  upon  such  wide  and  solid  founda- 
tions as  the  results  of  science  during  this  century,  should 
ever  share  the  fate  of   the   Egyptian   and  the  Roman 
empires ;  and  yet,  when  we  see  things  as  they  are  rather 
than  as  we  want  them  to  be,  it  is  certainly  an  impressive 
fact  that   the  whole  tendency  of  civilisation  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century  has  been  to  group  the  employ- 
ers together  in   gigantic   monopolies   and   trusts,    and 
the   employees    together   in    equally   formidable   trade 
unions.     We  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  fact  that  the 
unwealthy,    though    recognised   and    believed   to   com- 
pose  about   four-fifths  of   our  entire  population,  have 
never   in  the  United  States   yet  gone    together  to  the 
polls.     Whenever  a  popular  issue  has  been  raised  that 
might  have  united  them,  they  have  been  disunited  by  a 
false  financial  theory.     The  presidential  election  of  1896, 
instead  of  uniting  the  workingmen  under  the  banner  of 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  523 

Bryan,  profoundly  divided  them ;  for  silver  legislation, 
which  would  have  relieved  the  farmer  of  a  part  of  the 
burden  upon  his  land,  would  correspondingly  have  di- 
minished the  wages  of  the  workingman;  and  the  latter 
learned  this  before  election  day.  The  immense  vote, 
nevertheless,  polled  by  Bryan,  notwithstanding  the 
alienation  of  the  Eastern  workingman,  ought  to  be  some 
measure  to  us  of  the  power  of  the  popular  vote  if  not  dis- 
united by  a  dividing  financial  doctrine.  If,  for  example, 
the  popular  party  were  to  take  up  with  the  same  enthu- 
siasm as  was  evinced  at  the  presidential  election  of  1896 
such  a  single  issue  as  the  nationalisation  of  railroads, 
monopolies,  and  trusts,  —  issues  upon  which  they  need 
not  be  divided,  —  is  there  any  doubt  but  that  they 
would  carry  the  country  with  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority? And  if  they  did  so  carry  the  country,  is  there 
not  ground  for  fear  that  such  a  revolution  would  be 
attended  by  serious  consequences  to  the  State  ? 

In  England,  political  students  seem  to  be  persuaded 
that  workingmen  are  so  divided  between  the  two  politi- 
cal parties  that  there  is  no  danger  of  their  uniting  on  a 
political  programme.  It  seems  possible,  however,  that 
they  undervalue  the  effect  of  such  a  strike  as  that  of 
the  engineers  during  the  winter  of  1897-98 ;  the  workmen 
were  beaten,  and  this  defeat  was  regarded  by  some  as  a 
victory  for  capital.  But  this  victory  may  turn  out  to 
be  more  dangerous  to  capital  than  a  defeat;  there  are 
already  indications  that  the  workingmen,  having  been 
defeated  in  this  strike,  are  beginning  to  lose  their  con- 
fidence in  trade  unions  as  the  exclusive  method  for  main- 
taining wages,  and  are  being  driven  by  this  conclusion 
to  the  only  alternative, — politics.^     If  once  this  idea 

1  Since  1898,  Trade  Union  Congresses  have  twice  applauded  collect- 
ivism, whereas  prior  to  1898  collectivism  was  distinctly  out  of  favour 
with  them. 


524  COLLECTIVISM 

takes  hold  of  workingmen's  minds,  it  may  seize  upon 
one  of  the  parties  as  uncontrollably  as  the  silver  craze 
possessed  the  Democratic  party  in  the  United  States  in 
1896,  with  a  result  that  may  be  formidable  to  British 
institutions. 

One  thing,  however,  seems  certain,  if  the  workingmen 
once  succeed  in  securing  the  reins  of  power  and  attempt 
to  introduce  a  socialist  form  of  government,  the  experi- 
ment will  be  left  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  the 
greatest  selfish  interest  in  the  change ;  in  other  words, 
it  will  tend  to  be  a  repetition  of  what  we  have  already 
seen  occurring  over  and  over  again,  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
a  high  moral  and  social  theory  pushed  to  the  front,  not 
because  of  its  moralit)^,  but  because  it  serves  the  interest 
of  those  engaged  in  pushing  it;  and  if  logic  or  experi- 
ence have  any  value  we  are  bound  to  conclude  from  the 
lessons  drawn  from  the  past,  as  well  as  the  necessary 
consequences  of  the  working  of  observed  laws,  that  the 
experiment  is  under  such  circumstances  likely  to  prove 
a  failure. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  experiment  were  attempted, 
not  for  the  immediate  purpose  of  benefiting  a  particular 
class,  but  for  the  ultimate  purpose  of  benefiting  all  alike, 
and  with  the  patience  and  deliberateness  that  both 
science  and  religion  unite  in  recommending,  then  it  is 
conceivable  that  by  slow  steps  humanity  may  Ije  gradu- 
ally adapted  to  a  form  of  government  that  will  not  only 
in  itself  be  just,  but  will  permit  of  justice  in  the  indi- 
vidual relations  of  man  to  man. 

The  lessons  to  be  derived  from  the  moral  view  of  gov- 
ernment have  too  recently  been  recapitulated  for  it  to  be 
necessary  to  enlarge  upon  them  here.  We  may  confine 
ourselves,  therefore,  to  some  of  the  most  important  con- 
clusions derivable  therefrom. 

We  have  heretofore  gone  to  science  for  our  physical 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  525 

improvement,  our  sanitation,  our  physical  comforts ;  for 
medicine  and  surgery,  for  nutritious  foods,  and  for  all 
that  contributes  to  eliminate  physical  pain.  For  our 
moral  improvement  we  have  gone  for  the  most  part  to 
religion ;  we  have  sought  it  at  the  altar  and  the  confes- 
sional, from  the  lips  of  the  priest  or  the  word  of  the 
gospel.  But  for  our  political  improvement  we  have 
gone  to  neither  science  nor  religion.  We  have  left 
political  changes  practically  to  the  mercy  of  human 
selfishness.  No  political  measure  is  enacted  into  law 
unless  it  has  behind  it  the  organised  effort  of  a  part  of 
the  voting  population  sufficient  to  force  it  upon  the  at- 
tention of  the  legislature.  It  sometimes  happens  that 
the  very  iniquity  of  political  conditions  creates  a  suffi- 
cient reaction  on  the  morality  of  the  mass  to  arouse  it 
to  the  necessary  political  effort.  We  see  this  operating 
in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  in  the  improvement  of  our 
ballot  laws,  and  in  the  mitigation  of  the  horrors  of  war 
through  the  slow  development  of  public  international 
law.  But  this  beneficent  action  is  comparatively  rare, 
whereas  the  action  of  selfishness  in  politics  is  constant. 
As  has  been  already  remarked,  even  in  the  British 
Parliament,  where  no  reasonable  man  believes  that  the 
corrupt  use  of  money  is  to  any  extent  possible,  only 
those  measures  for  improving  the  condition  of  the  work- 
inofmen  have  been  enacted  which  had  behind  them  the 
largest  political  fund ;  and  if  this  be  so  in  the  British 
Parliament,  how  should  it  be  otherwise  in  State  legisla- 
tures, which  are  for  the  most  part  elected  through  the 
distribution  of  campaign  funds  collected  from  the  cor- 
porations which  have  an  interest  in  controlling  them  ? 

Under  these  conditions  it  seems  unlikely  that  any 
reasonable  improvement  can  take  place  within  a  reason- 
able time  until  the  enactment  of  our  laws  is  guided  by 
some  better  principle  than  egotism. 


526  COLLECTIVISM 

When,  however,  we  go  to  science  for  assistance,  we 
have  to  recognise  that  there  is  a  tendency,  through  what 
is  believed  to  be  an  error  of  one  of  its  most  important 
schools,  to  discourage  human  effort  by  destroying  human 
hope.  For  if  the  laws  of  nature  are  to  be  allowed  full 
play;  if  justice  involves,  as  claimed,  the  rewarding  of 
men  according  to  their  deeds  rather  than  according  to 
their  needs ;  if  the  most  crafty  are  always  to  prosper  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest;  if  man  is  practically  powerless 
by  the  side  of  the  overmastering  supremacy  of  such 
laws  as  that  of  natural  selection,  —  then  effort  is  vain. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  a  tendency  in  religion 
also  to  discourage  effort  by  exaggerating  the  role  of 
Providence  in  the  world.  Nothing,  for  example,  is 
more  calculated  to  discourage  it  than  the  theory  that 
man  can  be  saved  only  by  divine  grace ;  or  that  we  must 
depend  upon  Providence  and  not  upon  ourselves  for  our 
advancement.  It  is  not  necessary  to  deny  Providence  in 
order  to  enhance  the  importance  of  human  effort ;  but  it 
is,  above  all  things,  necessary  to  keep  human  effort  alive 
by  not  exaggerating  the  role  of  Providence. 

This  must  not  be  construed  as  an  attack  upon  the 
theories  of  science  and  religion  in  their  own  respective 
fields:  let  science  continue  to  develop  its  theory  of 
natural  selection  in  the  realm  of  nature,  and  let  religion 
continue  to  dwell  upon  the  power  of  the  supernatural 
within  its  own  sphere.  So  far  as  the  individual  conduct 
of  man  is  concerned,  religion  is  still  called  upon  to 
perform  a  task  of  priceless  value  by  keeping  every  indi- 
vidual man  up  to  a  high  standard  of  morality.  What 
is  asked  of  both  science  and  religion  is  that  in  the 
neutral  field  of  politics  the  obvious  facts  which  have 
been  given  in  this  book  be  recognised,  and  that  both 
science  and  religion  help  to  persuade  men  that  the  great 
obstacle   to   human   happiness   is  selfishness;  that  our 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  527 

present  institutions  stimulate  selfishness  so  as  to  consti- 
tute a  perpetual  obstacle  to  happiness ;  that  so  long  as 
our  institutions  oblige  every  man  to  seek  satisfaction 
for  himself,  they  are  bound  to  keep  alive  in  every  man 
the  very  selfishness  which  makes  happiness  impossible. 
Science  amply  demonstrates  the  limits  within  which 
man  can,  by  effort  wisely  directed,  diminish  the  conse- 
quence of  natural  inequalities  and  at  the  same  time 
eliminate  the  necessity  for  conflict  by  substituting  co- 
operation for  competition  in  our  social  and  industrial 
system.  And  what  science  shows  can  be  done,  religion 
has,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  been  ordering 
us  to  do ;  and  it  is  because  our  institutions  have  made 
it  impossible  to  obey  the  orders  of  religion  that  the 
voice  of  religion  remains  to-day  in  great  part  in- 
effectual. It  is  time  that  religion  and  science  join 
hands  to  show  us  the  true  principles  of  government; 
science  contributing  knowledge  and  religion  self-control. 
Then  shall  our  institutions  be  founded  on  neither  selfish- 
ness, folly,  nor  craft,  but  on  the  combination  of  knowl- 
edge and  morality  which  we  have  called  wisdom ;  and 
then  shall  we  be  rescued  from  the  evolution  of  nature 
by  the  effort  of  man. 

§  5.   Conclusion 

For  the  purpose  of  defining  the  conclusions  to  which 
we  have  been  led,  let  us  now  revert  to  the  four  different 
points  of  view  from  which  at  the  opening  it  was  stated 
that  government  could  best  be  studied :  — 

The  Historical  —  or  what  it  has  been. 

The  Morphological  —  or  what  it  is. 

The  Physiological  —  or  what  it  does. 

The  Teleological  —  or  what  is  its  purpose  or  aim. 

§  1.    History  demonstrates    that  government  has  for 


528  COLLECTIVISM 

the  most  part  been  the  rule  of  collective  conduct  which, 
under  the  operation  of  the  natural  law  of  competition, 
the  crafty  minority  has  in  its  own  interests  imposed  upon 
the  less  crafty  multitude.  At  rare  intervals  a  non- 
natural  motive,  taking  the  form  of  the  Church  one  day 
or  Cliivalry  the  next,  has  sought  to  take  the  framing  of 
government  out  of  the  hands  of  selfishness.  But  the 
effectual  action  of  this  non-natural  motive  has  been  in- 
termittent, whereas  the  effectual  action  of  selfishness  in 
consequence  of  the  competitive  character  of  our  indus- 
trial system  has  been  continuous.  Every  effort  of  this 
non-natural  motive,  therefore,  to  improve  conditions 
tends  sooner  or  later  to  be  captured  by  craft  and  made  to 
serve  the  interests  of  egotism.  This  must  continue  to  be 
the  case  so  long  as  industrial  conditions  are  such  as  to 
force  all  of  us  into  the  demoralising  scramble  for  wealth. 

The  scramble  for  wealth,  too,  has  been  shown  to  be 
prejudicial  to  type. 

§  2.  Morphologiccdly^  government  is  the  rule  of  social 
conduct  which  prevails  in  every  community.  An  ex- 
tended study  of  government  from  the  morphological 
point  of  view  would  involve  that  of  constitutional  law, 
which  is  foreign  to  the  main  purpose  of  this  book. 

§  3.  Physiologically^  the  rule  of  social  conduct  adopted 
by  every  community  performs  the  function  of  equalisa- 
tion, —  that  is  to  say,  of  reducing  the  inequalities  of 
nature  so  that  the  violence  which  prevails  in  nature  no 
longer  prevails  in  civilised  communities.  But  the  func- 
tion works  badly;  for  although  it  has  dragged  down  the 
violent  man,  it  has  lifted  in  his  place,  not  the  moral  man, 
but  the  man  of  craft;  and  in  levelling  natural  inequali- 
ties of  muscular  strength  it  has  created  artificial  ine- 
qualities through  the  institution  of  private  property, 
which  is  responsible  for  pauperism  and  prostitution,  and 
in  great  part  for  crime. 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  529 

§  4.  Teleologically,  whereas  the  purpose  or  aim  of  gov- 
ernment has  been  to  attain  justice,  it  has  in  fact  worked 
injustice. 

Justice  has  been  found  to  include  two  things,  — 
the  virtue  of  justice,  which  consists  in  an  attitude  of 
mind  towards  social  relations,  and  the  act  of  justice, 
which  consists  in  a  rule  of  conduct  as  regards  social 
relations. 

This  rule  of  conduct  has  been  defined  to  be  a  per- 
petual effort  to  diminish  the  inequalities  of  nature  with 
a  view  to  making  the  community  serve  the  interests  of 
the  individual  rather  than  the  individual  serve  the  in- 
terests of  the  community,  and  to  perpetuate  a  noble  type 
rather  than  a  base  one. 

The  virtue  of  justice,  if  the  preceding  definition  of 
the  act  of  justice  be  adopted,  will  include  a  habit,  a 
desire,  and  a  resolve  to  make  the  effort  therein  defined. 

This  effort  has  encountered  throughout  history  the 
opposition  of  selfishness  and  intelligence,  which,  when 
united,  have  been  denominated  craft.  Craft  has  in- 
trenched itself  in  the  notion  of  private  property,  and  has 
been  helped  in  so  doing  by  the  undoubted  fact  that  the 
institution  of  private  property  was  a  phase  through 
which  man  had  to  pass  in  order  to  develop  out  of  the 
fierce  individualism  of  the  carnivora  in  nature. 

But  property  is  of  three  kinds :  — 

1.    Property  of  the  male  in  the  female,  recognised  in 

the  institution  of  marriage. 
II.  Property  of  a  privileged  class  in  political  office 
recognised  in  the  so-called  rights  of  the  king, 
the  nobility,  and  the  Church  to  the  functions 
respectively  usurped  by  them,  and  to-day  main- 
tained through  the  self-constituted  authority  of 
political  machines. 
III.    Property  of  a  minority  in  wealth. 

34 


530  COLLECTIVISM 

Of  these,  the  first — ^  property  of  the  male  in  the 
female  —  has  yielded  to  a  notion  of  mutual  and  lifelong 
loyalty  which,  if  maintained,  would  make  every  family 
a  school  of  social  and  political  as  well  as  individual 
improvement. 

The  second  —  property  in  political  office  —  has  in  pop- 
ular governments  disappeared  in  theory,  though  not  in 
fact.  The  Reformation  destroyed  it  to  a  great  extent 
for  the  Church,  and  the  Revolution  has  destroyed  it 
for  the  king  and  noble.  The  usurpation  of  political 
office  by  the  political  machine  is  to-day  being  limited  by 
civil-service  reform  and  the  exercise,  when  intelligent, 
of  the  independent  vote. 

The  third  —  private  property  in  wealth  —  still  controls 
our  social,  industrial,  and  political  institutions.  But 
the  power  of  the  majority  which  it  condemns  to  com- 
parative want  is  increasing  rapidly;  it  is  organising  in 
trade  unions  and  compelling  counter-organisation  by 
capital  in  trusts  and  protective  associations.  The  two 
forces,  instead  of  being  diffused  and  dissipated  through- 
out the  social  structure  as  in  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury, are  to-day  massed  and  intrenched  face  to  face  with 
every  omen  of  impending  conflict. 

It  has  been  argued  that  such  a  conflict  would  be  dan- 
gerous to  civilisation,  inconsistent  with  our  religious 
professions,  and  is,  in  view  of  the  ultimate  feasibility  of 
a  more  or  less  partial  collectivism,  unnecessary. 

It  has  been  argued  that  such  a  conflict  can  only  be 
averted  provided  the  morality  and  intelligence  —  that  is 
to  say,  the  wisdom  —  of  the  community  rescue  the  making 
of  our  institutions  and  laws  from  the  hands  of  folly  and 
craft.  Political  wisdom  involves  an  alliance  of  science 
and  religion  upon  tlie  field  of  politics.  Its  first  duty 
is  to  frame  a  programme  which  will  have  for  effect,  by 
steps  that  are  each  of  them  slow  and  practical,  to  fit  men 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  531 

for  a  collectivist  State,  —  the  only  one  in  which  the 
element  of  selfishness  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

The  attainment  of  justice  is  the  main  purpose  of  gov- 
ernment. But  it  has  been  shown  that  there  are  occa- 
sions for  inequality  and  unhappiness  in  nature  which  no 
wisdom  which  we  now  have  can  remove.  No  purely 
political  change  can  secure  happiness  for  man.  Where 
political  wisdom  breaks  down,  moral  wisdom  or  enlight- 
ened religion  may  step  in.  With  the  role  of  religion 
over  our  individual  lives,  this  book  does  not  undertake 
to  deal.  But  the  role  of  religion  over  our  collective 
conduct  is  an  essential  part  of  every  political  scheme. 
It  is  in  great  part  because  politics  have  been  divorced 
from  religion  that  the  making  of  our  laws  has  been  left 
to  the  war  of  opposing  interests.  The  morality  which, 
unsatisfied  by  ecclesiastical  ritual,  has  been  dissipating 
itself  in  ineffectual  schemes  of  private  philanthropy  will 
find  its  true  mission  in  effectual  schemes  of  State  philan- 
thropy. The  evils  and  dangers  which  confront  us  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  private  effort;  they  can  be  suc- 
cessfully overcome  only  by  the  collective  power  of  the 
State.  They  consist  in  great  part  in  defects  in  our 
State  constitution,  in  our  State  laws,  and  in  our  com- 
mercial system.  It  is  only  by  changes  in  our  institu- 
tions, then,  that  they  can  be  made  consistent  with  the 
morality  we  profess.  We  are  all  being  driven  by  the 
same  relentless  goad,  —  omnes  eodem  cogiinur.  It  is  use- 
less to  oppose  militarism  and  expansion,  when  over-pro- 
duction leaves  us  no  option  but  either  to  create  nev/ 
markets  or  to  shut  down  our  factories.  It  is  useless  to 
attempt  to  relieve  the  poor  so  long  as  social  conditions 
are  grinding  them  out  faster  than  we  can  relieve  them. 
It  is  useless  for  employers  to  rail  against  organised 
labour  now  that  organised  labour  has  acquired  the  intel- 
ligence and  self-restraint  necessary  for  effectual  collec- 


532  COLLECTIVISM 

tive  action.  Labour  organisations  indeed  have  attained 
that  momentous  coign  of  vantage  that  they  are  likely 
in  their  conflicts  with  capital  to  gain  even  more  by  de- 
feat than  by  victory.  For  while  victory  will  serve  only 
to  strengthen  them  in  the  industrial  field,  defeat  will 
drive  them,  with  all  their  collective  strength,  into  the 
field  of  politics;  and  here  their  action,  if  united,  will 
be  irresistible. 

We  are  like  dwellers  by  an  encroaching  sea  of  which 
"Walt  Whitman  wrote,  — 

"Surely  some  right  withheld." 

Dare  we  any  longer  withhold  this  right?  And  if  we 
dare,  ought  we  any  longer  to  withhold  it  ? 

The  progress  of  man  has  not  been  straight,  but,  like  a 
stream,  it  has  at  one  time  wound  deviously  through 
pleasant  places ;  at  others,  been  dashed  headlong  between 
jagged  cliffs.  But  at  all  times,  whether  in  Assyria  and 
Egypt  man  is  driven  in  hordes  by  instinct  or  habit, 
blindly  following  the  lead  of  a  military  chief;  whether, 
inspired  by  a  fierce  individualism,  he  is  creating  the  city 
republics  of  the  Greeks;  whether  excess  of  individual- 
ism exposes  him  to  conquest  by  the  Macedonian  horde 
again,  or  with  a  higher  collective  ideal  he  recreates  a 
greater  republic  in  Rome ;  whether  he  lapses  once  more 
by  sheer  degeneration  into  empire  and  suffers  the  price 
of  degeneration  in  the  riot  and  darkness  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  only  once  more  to  reassert  his  individualism  in 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  Revo- 
lution of  the  centuries  that  followed ;  whether  in  polit- 
ical declaration  of  rigfhts  or  in  industrial  cries  for  freedom 
of  contract;  whether  in  the  making  of  guilds  to  protect 
the  collective  idea,  or  the  destro^'ing  of  guilds  to  renew 
that  of  individualism ;  whether  at  last,  in  the  organisa- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION"  533 

tion  of  trade  unions,  he  reaffirms  the  necessity  of  collec- 
tive action  in  the  ranks  of  labour  or  in  the  organisation 
of  trusts,  protective  associations,  and  Birmingham 
alliances,  —  he  is  brought  back  to  the  necessity  of  associ- 
ation in  the  ranks  of  capital.  Man  is  slowly  learning  the 
lesson  that  he  can  attain  the  highest  happiness  only  by 
lifting  himself  out  of  the  instinct  and  competition  that 
characterise  nature,  into  the  wisdom  and  the  self-restraint 
that  distinguish  him  from  all  other  animals.  He  may 
yet  have  to  swing  many  a  time  from  the  extreme  of 
individualism  to  that  of  solidarity,  and  back  from  that 
of  solidarity  to  that  of  individualism;  but  if  he  is  to 
escape  degeneration  he  can  do  so  only  in  one  way,  —  by 
the  enhancement  of  the  faculty  of  individual  and  social 
self-control. 

Collectivism  is  the  ideal  form  of  government  to  which 
a  high  faculty  of  individual  and  social  self-restraint 
is  essential,  and  in  which  will  be  found  the  highest 
happiness. 

At  present  collectivism  is  a  creed  rather  than  a  pro- 
gramme. But  it  is  a  practical  creed,  —  one  we  can  take 
into  politics  with  us  as  well  as  into  church. 

The  question  that  every  nation,  every  State,  every 
city,  has  next  to  solve  is  what  is  the  first  political  step 
that  will  move  most  effectually  towards  this  distant 
goal? 


I 

I 


APPENDIX 


TRUSTS 

The  aspect  presented  by  trusts  differs  according  to  the  point 
of  view;  politically  and  socially  regarded  they  seem  an  unmiti- 
gated evil,  for  they  tend  to  destroy  individual  initiative,  and 
they  present  an  occasion,  a  necessity,  and  a  power  for  political 
corruption  unexampled  in  history.  From  a  purely  economic 
point  of  view,  on  the  other  hand,  and  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  competitive  system  is  a  sound  one,  they  seem  an  unquali- 
fied good ;  for  they  represent  to  the  highest  conceivable  degree 
the  glorification  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,-'  upon  which  the 
competitive  system  is  based;  they  attain  the  maximum  of  econ- 
omy both  in  production  and  in  distribution ;  and  they  secure 
the  advantages  of  competition  in  tending  to  keep  prices  reason- 
able and  regular  without  the  disadvantages  which  attend  com- 
petition, such  as  irregular  employment,  fluctuating  prices,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  the  anxiety  and  want  that  attend  bankruptcy 
of  employer  and  non-employment  of  employee. 

Tliis  Appendix  is  written  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the 
facts  elicited  by  the  late  Industrial  Commission,  which  empha- 
sise the  econoinrc  advantages  of  Trusts ;  and  in  the  course  of 
the  argument  light  will  be  thrown  upon  several  points  which 
have  been  incompletely  treated  in  this  volume  for  the  reason 
that  at  the  time  it  was  written  the  facts  in  question  were  not 
easily  accessible. 

The  evidence  taken  by  the  Industrial  Commission  has  elicited 
facts  that  tend  to  the  following  conclusions :  — 

1  Witnesses  to  the  prosperity  of  trusts  are  continually  justifying  them 
on  the  principle  of  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest.  See  the  testimony  of 
Messrs.  Boyle  (p.  486)  and  Archbold  (p.  568)  in  the  Report  of  the  Indus- 
trial Commission. 


536  APPENDIX 

1.  Over-production  is  so  constant  an  attendant  of  competi- 
tive production  as  to  seem  a  necessary  feature  of  it. 

2.  Over-production  is  the  principal  cause  of  trusts. 

3.  Competition  is  needlessly  wasteful. 

4.  Industry  is  driven  towards  the  trust  system  by  over-pro- 
duction ;  it  is  also  drawn  towards  it  by  economy.  The  maximum 
of  economy  can  be  obtained  only  through  the  minimum  of  com- 
petition, or  economy  increases  inversely  with  competition. 

5.  Combination,  even  imder  competitive  conditions,  secures 
the  benefits  of  competition  without  its  evils :  it  substitutes  order 
for  disorder;  it  adjusts  supply  to  demand,  thereby  checking 
over-production  and  waste.  In  the  international  struggle  for 
the  market,  therefore,  the  industry  in  which  combination  is 
most  highly  developed  is  the  industry  which  because  it  is  the 
most  orderly  and  economical  will  in  the  end  prevail. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  industry  is  driven  by  inter- 
national as  well  as  by  intranational  competition  to  develop 
more  and  more  along  trust  lines;  or,  in  other  words, — 

Trusts  are  likely,  under  the  competitive  system,  to  increase 
rather  than  to  diminish  in  number  and  in  strength. 


'O' 


The  evidence  taken  before  the  Industrial  Commission  has  re- 
enforced  two  arguments  attempted  in  the  foregoing  pages. 
First,  that  over-production  and  the  misery  that  attends  it  are 
constant  features  of  the  competitive  system;  and,  secondly,  that 
an  enormous  economy  results  from  combination.  Now,  com- 
bination is  a  step  towards  collectivism  in  production  and  distri- 
bution. And  over-production  and  waste  are  the  two  principal 
economic  disadvantages  that  attend  competition.  These,  there- 
fore, are  the  points  to  which  attention  will  be  first  directed. 


I.    OVER-PPtODUCTION. 

Over-production  has  given  rise  to  considerable  difference  of 
opinion.  Early  writers  were  much  concerned  with  the  possi- 
bility of  a  "  universal  glut;  "  that  is  to  say,  of  over-production 
extending  over  the  whole  field  of  industry  and  tending  to  result 
in  a  general  industrial  paralysis.     J.  B.  Say  was  the  first  to 


APPENDIX  537 

point  out  that  under-production  was  as  much  to  be  feared  as 
over-production,  the  reasons  for  over-production  of  a  particular 
commodity  being  "  either  that  it  has  been  produced  in  exces- 
sive abundance,  or  that  the  production  of  other  commodities 
has  fallen  short."  In  other  words,  over-production  often 
takes  place  in  one  industry  because  there  has  been  under-pro- 
duction in  others.  The  evil  in  such  cases  is  one  of  proportion 
that  easily  rights  itself.  This  view,  which  is  undoubtedly  sound 
so  far  as  it  goes,  has  given  rise,  however,  to  a  false  security ;  for 
although  there  cannot  be  said  to  be  even  in  Mexico  the  ' '  in- 
disposition  to  consume  "  of  which  Malthus  in  this  connection 
wrote,  there  is  at  times  an  inability  to  consume,  due  to  irregu- 
larity of  employment,  Avhich  is  quite  as  serious  in  its  conse- 
quences upon  human  happiness.  Again,  many  economists 
have,  since  Say's  lucid  exposition  of  the  subject,  put  over- 
production out  of  sight  almost  entirely,  forgetting  that  although 
Say  attributed  it  in  part  to  under-production,  he  by  no  means 
failed  to  recognise  that  it  could  take  place  quite  independently 
of  under-production.  Say's  words  are  that  over-production  of  a 
particular  commodity  takes  place  because  "  either  it  has  been 
produced  in  excessive  abundance.,  or  the  production  of  other 
commodities  has  fallen  short."  This  is  a  plain  recognition 
that  over-production  can  precede  under-production  and  can 
take  place  independently  of  it.  There  is  a  school  of  modern 
economists  which  persistently  belittles  the  extent  of  over-pro- 
duction and  the  evil  that  results  from  it.  With  a  view,  there- 
fore, to  demonstrating  that  over-production  is  an  evil  which  we 
cannot  afford  to  neglect,  a  few  instances  of  it  have  been  col- 
lected from  the  history  of  our  largest  trusts.  It  would  seem 
from  these  instances  that  over-production  is  far  more  the  parent 
of  trusts  than  the  tariff;  for  though  the  tariff  may  tend  to 
stimulate  over-production,  over-production  will  be  found  in 
practically  every  industry  that  has  given  rise  to  trusts  whether 
protected  by  a  tariff  or  not.  And  with  a  view  to  making  this 
clear  the  first  industry  quoted  will  be  that  of  anthracite,  to 
which  no  tariff  applies.^ 

1  As  regards  the  Anthracite  Trust,  see  Mr.  Q.  0.  Virtue's  article  entitled 
"  The  Anthracite  Combinations,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  April, 
1896. 


538  APPENDIX 

The  history  of  the  production  of  anthracite  is  interesting 
from  many  different  points  of  view  to  show  the  unliappiness 
that  results  from  the  present  competitive  system.  When  an- 
thracite was  first  worked  it  was  found  relatively  near  the  sur- 
face ;  and  villages  sprang  up  around  every  centre  of  production. 
When,  however,  larger  beds  were  discovered  at  greater  depth, 
requiring  larger  capital  for  exploitation,  the  villages  which  had 
sprung  up  at  the  places  where  the  surface  beds  were  worked 
disappeared,  and  families  were  ruined  and  scattered. 

In  the  'sixties  the  workmen  employed  in  the  large  anthracite 
mines  were  for  the  most  part  American,  and  were  strongly 
organized  in  trade  unions.  When  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
all  large  exploitation  to  produce  the  utmost,  in  order  to  pay  in- 
terest on  capital  and  on  plant,  occasioned  a  larger  production  of 
anthracite  than  the  country  could  at  remunerative  prices  con- 
sume, the  mine-owners,  driven  to  reducing  cost,  reduced  it  at 
the  only  point  where  cost  can  in  such  cases  be  reduced ;  that  is 
to  say,  they  reduced  it  by  lowering  wages.  The  workmen 
struck;  but  the  strike  was  of  a  peculiar  character;  they  did 
not  strike  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  their  employers  to  pay 
them  a  higher  wage  than  the  Market  could  afford.  They  struck 
in  order,  by  stopping  over-production,  to  restore  the  Market  to 
a  condition  which  would  enable  the  employers  to  pay  the  pre- 
vious wage.  For  this  purpose  the  workmen  decided  to  stop 
working  an  entire  month;  their  calculation  turned  out  to  be 
sound ;  an  end  was  put  to  the  glut  which  had  reduced  prices, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  month  they  returned  to  work  at  the  old 
wages. 

The  mine-owners,  however,  did  not  care  to  have  the  question 
of  production  determined  by  their  workmen;  they  therefore 
substituted  for  American  workmen  foreigners  who  were  care- 
fully recruited  at  the  emigrant  stations  and  even  in  Hungary 
and  other  European  centres.  This  broke  down  the  strength  of 
the  trade  imion  and  throw  the  question  of  production  back 
into  the  hands  of  the  mine-owners,  with  the  usual  result,  — 
over-production. 

There  then  followed  a  series  of  agreements  between  mine- 
owners  to  diminish  production,  the  principal  of   which  were 


APPENDIX  539 

those  of  18G9,  of  1872,  of  1877,  and  of  1885,  each  of  these 
agreements  being  in  turn  violated  and  leading  in  turn  to 
rupture  until  over-production  became  so  intolerable  again  tliat 
another  agreement  became  necessary.  Nothing  is  more  clear 
than  that  every  mine-owner  throughout  this  period  was  driven 
by  competition  to  make  his  production  as  large  as  possible,  so  as 
to  make  small  profits  on  large  transactions  compensate  for  the 
larger  profit  on  smaller  transactions  which  competition  no 
longer  rendered  possible. 

The  tendency  of  every  mine-owner  to  produce  to  the  utmost 
was  encouraged  by  competing  railroads,  which  had  an  interest 
in  carrying  the  largest  amount  of  anthracite  possible  and  offered 
rebates  to  the  largest  shippers ;  inasmuch  as  anthracite  is  bulky, 
and  freight  enters  very  largely  into  the  cost  of  anthracite  at 
seaports,  transportation  forms  an  important  feature  in  the 
economic  conditions  affecting  it.  In  1892  Mr.  McLeod,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Reading  Railroad,  sought  to  effect,  by  a  combination 
between  the  roads  that  carried  anthracite,  what  the  mine- 
owners  had  theretofore  been  unable  to  efi'ect;  under  his  plan 
the  railroads  were  to  control  the  mines  and  were  to  acree  to 
keep  down  over-production  and  divide  the  traffic.  The  McLeod 
combination  had  immediately  for  effect  by  lowering  production 
to  raise  the  price  of  coal,  stove  size,  at  Eastern  ports  from 
$4.09  to  $4.19.  But  the  Reading  Road  was  not  strong  enough 
to  carry  the  burden  it  had  undertaken ;  with  its  bankruptcy  in 
that  year  came  an  immediate  fall  to  $3.60  in  Eastern  ports  in 
1894  and  to  $3.08  in  1895.  The  over-production  became  so 
great  that  instead  of  working  the  normal  ten  hours  a  day  dur- 
ing six  days  of  the  week,  the  Reading  men  in  1895  worked 
only  eight  hours  a  day  for  three  or  four  days  in  the  week. 
Over-production  having  to  a  certain  extent  been  controlled 
by  this  process,  in  1896  the  working  hours  were  increased  to 
nine  a  day  for  five  days  in  the  week;  but  even  under  these 
conditions  over-production  was  still  the  rule.  The  American 
Market  was  at  that  time  capable  of  purchasing  forty  million 
tons  of  anthracite  coal  while  the  mines  were  producing  forty- 
six  million  tons,  or  six  million  tons  more  than  the  Market  could 
take.     This  condition  of  things  gave  rise  to  another  agreement 


540  APPENDIX 

in  1896  under  which  the  Reading  Company  agreed  to  reduce 
its  production  to  eight  million  tons,  or  one  fifth  of  the  total 
production. 

Since  1896  a  complete  reorganisation  of  the  Reading  Road 
has  led  to  a  still  stronger  control  of  production,  which  has 
resulted  in  the  present  high  prices. 

The  history  of  the  steel  trust  is  similar  to  that  of  anthracite. 
It  began  with  numerous  pooling  arrangements  to  limit  pro- 
duction, every  pooling  arrangement  resulting  in  higher  prices, 
but  eventually  in  rupture  and  a  subsequent  reduction  of  prices. 
The  difficulty  of  keeping  the  parties  to  the  agreements  made 
compelled  Messrs.  Carnegie  and  Rockefeller  to  effect  the  com- 
bination which  has  now  brought  the  mines  of  Lake  Superior 
into  the  same  combination  that  produces  steel  at  Pittsburgh. 
Doubtless,  economy  of  production  is  one  of  the  great  advan- 
tages secured  by  this  combination;  but  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  the  first  cause  which  led  to  the  pooling  arrangements  that 
preceded  the  trust  was  over-production. 

The  same  thing  is  true  as  regards  sugar.  The  first  pool  of 
sugar-refiners  was  the  result  of  a  strike  in  New  York,  and 
in  this  respect  the  sugar  trust  resembles  the  anthracite  trust. 
Before  the  strike  there  had  been  a  cut-throat  competition 
between  refiners  which  had  caused  refined  sugar  to  be  sold 
at  a  price  below  cost.  When,  however,  the  workmen  in  New 
York  struck,  the  refiners  who  had  theretofore  been  bitter 
enemies  combined  so  as  to  enable  the  refineries  of  Boston, 
Philadelphia,  and  other  Eastern  seaport  towns  to  supply  the 
demand  for  refined  sugar,  notwithstanding  the  cessation  of  work 
in  New  York;  the  profits  upon  all  the  sugar  manufactured 
being  divided  proportionately  among  all  the  refineries,  including 
New  York.  Refiners,  having  once  got  together  on  this  basis, 
remained  together,  and  were  driven  by  anti-trust  legislation 
into  organising  in  a  more  and  more  compact  form,  until  to-day 
it  has  taken  the  shape  of  a  corporation  which  is  probably 
beyond  the  reach  of  anti-trust  legislation  altogether.  It  is 
important,  however,  to  note  the  extent  to  which  over-pro- 
duction was  an  essential  factor  in  the  organisation  of  this  trust. 
The   refining   of    sugar   requires    large   capital;  sugar,    being 


APPENDIX  541 

easily  kept,  can  be  stored  in  large  quantities  for  considerable 
periods  without  injury;  the  fact  that  the  amount  of  capital 
invested  is  large  pushes  refiners  to  producing  the  utmost 
possible ;  and  the  fact  that  sugar  can  be  stored  encourages  large 
production  by  enabling  refiners  to  hold  over  for  a  better  market. 
Over-production  under  these  conditions  became  so  excessive 
that  out  of  forty  refiners  eighteen  became  bankrupt  just  prior 
to  the  organisation  of  the  first  sugar  trust.  Of  the  twenty- 
two  that  remained  eighteen  combined.  Of  these  eighteen, 
eleven  refineries  were  closed,  leaving  seven  to  do  profitably 
the  work  which  had  previously  been  done  unprofitably  by 
forty. 

The  history  of  the  whiskey  trust  shows  over-production  to 
a  still  more  aggravated  degree.  Before  the  organisation  of  the 
Distilling  and  Cattle  Feeding  Company,  several  agreements 
were  entered  into  by  the  majority  of  the  distillers;  under  one 
of  them  they  agreed  to  reduce  production  to  forty  per  cent  of 
what  it  at  that  time  was ;  under  a  subsequent  agreement  they 
agreed  to  reduce  still  further  to  twenty-eight  per  cent;  and  out 
of  eighty  of  the  principal  distillers  who  organised  the  Distilling 
and  Cattle  Feeding  Company,  sixty-eight  were  closed,  leaving 
only  twelve  distilleries  operating. 

The  same  succession  of  events  is  to  be  found  in  the  history 
of  the  American  Steel  &  Wire  Company,  and  indeed  of  practi- 
cally all  American  trusts,  and  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general 
rule  that,  in  the  first  place,  competition  tends  to  produce  over- 
production; in  the  second  place,  over-production  reduces  prices 
to  a  ruinous  degree ;  in  the  third  place,  high  prices  are  restored 
in  one  of  four  ways :  — 

1.  The  low  prices  oblige  a  reduction  of  wages;  the  reduction 
of  wages  occasions  strikes;  and  the  cessation  of  production 
occasioned  by  strikes,  by  putting  an  end  to  the  glut  that 
lowered  prices,  restores  the  proper  relation  of  demand  to 
supply.     Or, — 

2.  Prices  become  so  low  as  to  cause  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
weakest  competitors;  this  bankruptcy  causes  the  shutting  doAvn 
of  some  of  the  mills,  and  thereby  relieves  the  over-production 
and  restores  prices.     Or,— 


542  APPENDIX 

3.  Foreign  trade  ^  relieves  the  domestic  market.     Or,^ 

4.  Combination  upon  the  trust  plan  applies  intelligence  to 
the  adjustment  of  production  to  demand. 

1  The,  Industrial  Commission  has  furnished  some  remarkable  examples 
of  the  extent  to  which  over-production  compels  the  conquest  of  markets 
abroad. 

At  one  period  prior  to  the  organisation  of  the  whiskey  trust,  distillers 
agreed  that  an  assessment  should  be  levied  which  each  distiller  should  pay 
upon  each  bushel  of  corn  mashed,  in  order  to  export  the  goods  at  a  loss, 
and  thus,  by  relieving  the  home  Market  of  the  surplus,  make  sufficient 
provision  for  selling  the  domestic  production  at  a  remunerative  price 
(Jenks,  Trust  Problem,  p.  108).  Another  of  the  pools  formed,  under 
the  name  of  the  Western  Exporters'  Association,  prior  to  the  organisation 
of  the  first  whiskey  trust,  determined  the  producing  capacity  of  each 
distillery  and  divided  among  them  the  producing  capacity  of  the  country 
pro  rata.  Distillers  producing  in  excess  were  required  to  export  at  their 
own  cost,  while  any  surplus  arising  fortuitously  was  exjiorted  at  the 
expense  of  the  Association,  the  loss  being  met  by  assessment.  (Testimony 
of  Messrs.  McNulta  (p.  200)  and  Clarke  (pp.  168,  169)  in  the  Keport  of 
the  Industrial  Commission.) 

At  a  time  when  the  American  trade  was  paying  $28  a  ton  for  steel  rails, 
the  same  steel  rails  were  being  sold  to  Japan  at  $20.  (Monde  Economique, 
Feb.  20,  1897.)  When  the  pooling  arrangement  under  which  this 
export  of  steel  rails  at  a  lower  price  in  Japan  than  prevailed  in  America 
was  broken  up,  the  price  of  steel  went  down  to  $15,  and  this  resulted  in 
1897  in  enormous  orders  abroad,  25,000  tons  being  ordered  in  England 
and  15,000  tons  in  Japan  ;  and  three  weeks  afterwards  another  sudden 
reduction  in  price  brought  about  orders  abroad  of  1,500,000  tons  at 
a  value  of  150,000,000  francs.  Mr.  Guthrie,  President  of  the  American 
Steel  Hoop  Company,  testifies :  — 

"American  manufacturers,  too,  sometimes  follow  the  practice  of 
exporting  a  surplus  product  at  a  price  less  than  the  average  cost  of  the 
entire  output  —  considerably  less  than  the  price  in  this  country.  The 
Carnegie  Company  thus  at  one  time  proposed  to  sell  a  large  quantity  of 
steel  abroad  at  twenty  per  cent  less  than  the  domestic  price  in  order  to 
•  keep  things  moving  and  bring  gold  back  to  this  country.'"  (Report  of 
the  Industrial  Commission,  p.  193.) 

Mr.  Gates,  President  of  the  American  Steel  and  Wire  Company, 
testifies :  — 

"  The  price  at  which  the  American  Steel  and  Wire  Company  is  selling 
in  foreign  markets  at  present  is  less  than  the  domestic  price.  The  reason 
for  this  is  that  by  working  up  a  permanent  foreign  business  the  company 
can  assure  the  constant  operation  of  its  mills  and  thus  make  goods  cheaper, 
and  can  make  profits  from  maintaining  foreign  prices  at  times  when  there 


APPENDIX  543 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  of  these  four  escapes  from  the 
evils  of  over-production,  the  first  two  are  automatic,  or,  as 
some  economists  would  say,  natural,  and  involve  great  misery 
without  permanent  benefit;  the  third  is  automatic  with  a  dash 
of  intelligence  in  it;  whereas  the  fourth  is  wholly  deliberate 
and  intelligent,  or,  as  some  economists  would  say,  artificial, 
and  results  in  lasting  economy. 

11.   ECONOMY 

There  is  an  economy  which  results  from  all  concentration  of 
capital,  such  as  the  manufacture  of  waste  products.  This  econ- 
omy is  sometimes  of  startling  importance.  The  managers  of 
the  Standard  Oil  trust  testify  that  among  the  waste  products 
capable  of  being  utilised  in  sufficiently  large  refineries  are  gaso- 
line, paraffine,  lubricating  oil,  vaseline,  naphtha,  aniline  dyes, 
and  no  less  than  two  hundred  drugs,  and  that  the  total  value  of 
these  waste  products  is  actually  as  great  as  that  of  the  oil  itself.^ 

But  it  is  not  the  economy  which  attends  mere  concentra- 
tion of  capital  which  particularly  interests  us.     The  economies 

is  a  decline  in  the  home  price.  By  manufacturing  perhaps  200,000  tons  of 
wire  per  annum  for  export  the  entire  cost  of  manufacture  can  be  mateiially 
cheapened,  and  in  the  long  run  the  domestic  consumer  will  receive  a  lower 
price."    (Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  p.  205.) 

Mr.  Gaiy,  President  of  the  Federal  Steel  Compan}-,  testifies:  "Steel 
has  also  been  shipped  recently  to  Japan  at  a  price  below  the  domestic 
price."     (Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  p.  199.) 

Mr.  J.  W.  Lee,  President  of  the  three  independent  pipe-line  organisa- 
tions, testifies  that  prior  to  1895  "export  oil  was  sold  in  New  York  below  the 
cost  of  crude  at  the  refinery."  (Report  of  Industrial  Commission,  p.  121.) 

The  representatives  of  most  of  the  trust  combinations  pointed  out  the 
enormous  increase  in  the  export  trade  due  to  these  combinations  ;  and 
those  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  claimed  that  this  trade  could  not  have 
been  secured  without  the  expenditure  of  large  sums  of  money  such  as  only 
a  great  combination  can  control.  (Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission, 
p.  22,  and  witnesses  cited. )  In  other  words,  a  trust  possesses  the  means  and 
the  information  to  use  foreign  trade  as  a  resource,  whereas  competition 
reduces  small  manufacturers  to  resort  to  it  as  an  extremity. 

The  above  illustrations  are  cited  in  aid  of  the  contention  that  over- 
production stimulates  and  comjiels  the  conquest  of  foreign  trade. 

1  Testimony  of  Mr.  Arcbbold  (pp.  570,  571)  in  the  Report  of  the  In- 
dustiial  Commission. 


544  APPENDIX 

which  particularly  interest  students  of  trusts  are  those  that  re- 
sult from  the  combination  of  many  factories  under  one  manage- 
ment.    These  economies  may  be  divided  into  two  classes : 

(a)  Economies  in  production;  and 

(b)  Economies  in  distribution. 

1.   Economies  in  Production 

(a)    Economy  Occasioned  by   Working  Factories  at 
Maximum  Efficiency 

Under  the  system  of  free  competition  every  factory  is  sub- 
ject to  variations  of  demand:  at  one  season  the  factory  is  over- 
worked; at  another  it  is  not  enough  worked  to  occupy  its 
employees.  A  factory  is  working  at  the  maximum  profit  when 
it  is  working  at  its  highest  efficiency ;  every  factory,  therefore, 
has  an  interest  in  working  at  the  highest  efficiency.  This 
hardly  ever  takes  place  under  the  regime  of  free  competition 
except  at  seasons  of  extraordinary  prosperity.  When,  however, 
many  factories  combine  under  one  management,  most  of  them 
can  be  run  at  maximum  efficiency,  and  the  variation  in  demand 
can  be  concentrated  upon  comparatively  few  factories.  In  the 
case  of  the  sugar  trust,  of  the  seven  refineries  which  are  main- 
tained, six  work  without  interruption  at  maximum  efficiency, 
and  the  entire  variation  is  made  to  fall  upon  a  single  refinery,  — 
the  one  in  New  York. 

An  incidental  economy  resulting  from  this  plan  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  adjustment  of  the  work  of  a  factory  to  a 
fluctuating  demand  is  the  most  difficult  part  of  a  manager's  task, 
and  the  task  being  difficult  it  is  high  priced;  in  other  words, 
if  the  seven  refineries  now  constituting  the  sugar  trust  were 
working  under  the  system  of  free  competition  upon  their  own 
account  they  would  have  to  pay  high  prices  for  this  expensive 
management.  By  combining  these  seven  factories  under  one 
management,  the  expensive  management  is  confined  to  a  single 
refinery. 

We  should  underestimate  the  economy  resulting  from  this 
head  were  we  to  consider  only  the  seven  refineries  now  consti- 


APPENDIX  545 

tuting  the  sugar  trust;  it  must  be  remembered  that  before  the 
sugar  trust  was  organised  the  number  of  refineries  operating 
was  not  seven,  but  forty ;  so  that  under  the  system  of  free  com- 
petition forty  factories  were  all  working  under  expensive  man- 
agement and  at  great  disadvantage,  whereas  now  the  same  work 
is  being  done  by  seven  refineries  of  which  six  are  working  at 
maximum  efficiency  under  the  best  conditions  and  without  ex- 
pensive management,  and  only  one  is  now  subjected  to  the  dis- 
advantageous circumstances  and  expensive  management  that 
prior  to  the  combination  diminished  the  profits  of  every  one  of 
the  forty  competitors.  It  has  been  estimated  that  the  saving 
to  the  sugar  trust  arising  from  this  advantage  alone  is  as  high 
at  times  as  one-eighth  of  a  cent  per  pound,  or  $2.50  per  ton. 
The  sugar  trust  refines  about  1, 800, 000  tons  per  annum,  thus 
making  from  this  source  aloue  an  economy,  if  maintained 
throughout  the  year,  of  about  $4,500,000  per  annum. 

(h)    Economy  of  Time  in  Manufacturing  Only 
One  Dimension 

In  the  manufacturing  of  steel  hoops  eighty-five  different  sizes 
have  to  be  made.  When  every  factory  is  called  upon  to  fill  an 
order  comprising  many  sizes,  much  time  is  lost  in  changing  the 
rolling-machinery  for  difi"erent  sizes.  Mr.  Guthrie,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  American  Steel  Hoop  Company,  testifies  that  by 
specialising  products  in  difi'erent  plants  an  economy  of  $1  to 
$1.50  per  ton  is  effected.^  A  similar  economy  is  made  in  the 
manufacture  of  shoes  and  many  other  articles  of  different 
dimensions. 

2.   Economy  of  Distribution 

(a)    Gross-Freights 

A  refiner  of  crude  petroleum  in  the  Eastern  States,  in  com- 
peting with  a  refiner  in  Chicago  for  Western  trade,  is  at  a  dis- 
advantage owing  to  the  necessity  of  paying  cross-freights ;  that 
is  to  say,  he  has  to  pay  the  cost  of  transporting  crude  oil  from 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  pp.  953-957. 

35 


546  APPENDIX 

the  wells  to  New  York,  and  then  the  cost  of  carrying  the  re- 
fined oil  back  over  practically  the  same  ground  to  the  West. 
When,  however,  factories  in  Chicago  and  New  York  are  put 
under  one  management  as  in  the  Standard  Oil  trust,  these  cross- 
freights  are  avoided,  the  crude  oil  taken  to  New  York  is  re- 
fined for  the  Eastern  market  alone,  and  the  Western  market  is 
provided  with  oil  refined  in  Chicago.  The  salt  and  the  tin- 
plate  trusts  also  effect  a  great  economy  by  the  elimination  of 
cross-freights. 

(b)    "  Getting  the  Market  " 

The  expression  "  getting  the  Market  "  is  used  to  cover  all  the 
expenses  attending  the  bringing  of  goods  to  the  attention  of  the 
public,   and   they  may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  principal 
categories,  —  advertising  and  commercial  travellers.    The  public 
little  appreciates  the  enormous  cost  which,  under  the  system  of 
free  competition,  attends  the  work  of  finding  a  purchaser.     Mr. 
Bradley,  after  a  careful  calculation,  estimates  that  "  somewhere 
between  the  distiller  and  the  consumer  in  this  country  forty 
millions  of  dollars  are  lost;  this  goes  primarily  to  the  attempt 
to  secure  trade."  ^     He  testifies  that  the  combination  of  Ken- 
tucky distillers  was  able  to  dismiss  three  hundred  salesmen; 
the   Steel  and  Wire  trust  dismissed   two   hundred  salesmen. 
Mr.  Dowe,^  the  President  of  the  Commercial  Travellers'  Na- 
tional League,  testifies  that  thirty-five  thousand  salesmen  have 
been  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  organisation  of  trusts, 
and  twenty -five  thousand  reduced  to  two-thirds  of  their  previ- 
ous salaries.     This  would  represent  a  loss  of  $60,000,000  in 
salaries  on  a  basis  of  $1,200  each.     He  cites,  as  instances  of 
trusts  that  have  dismissed  salesmen,  the  baking  powder,  bicy- 
cle,  chair,   paper-bag,   rubber,  tin-plate,   steel  and  rod,   sugar, 
coffee,    thread,   and    type-founders'    combinations.     Not    only 
do  trusts  dismiss  salesmen,   but   they  substitute  for  salesmen 
who  prior  to  the  organisation  of  the  trust  had  been  earning 
$4,000    to    $5,000   a    year,    cheaper    salesmen   who   receive 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  pp.  829-831. 

2  Md.,  pp.  27-36. 


APPENDIX  547 

$18  a  week.  He  also  estimates  that  the  dismissal  of  commer- 
cial travellers  means  a  loss  to  railways  of  about  $2.50  per  day 
for  240  days  in  the  year,  in  all  $27,000,000.  The  loss  to 
hotels  is  about  as  much,  and  "  many  hotels  are  likely  to  become 
bankrupt  if  any  more  travellers  are  taken  off."  To  Mr.  Dowe 
and  the  organisation  he  represents  the  dismissal  of  commercial 
travellers  is  of  course  a  disaster;  but  from  a  purely  economic 
point  of  view,  assuming  the  competitive  system  to  be  a  sound 
one,  what  is  a  disaster  to  the  Commercial  Travellers'  National 
League  is  a  benefit  to  the  industry  and  to  the  nation  at  large, 
for  it  represents  so  much  economy  realised.  This  question 
admirably  illustrates  how  the  competitive  system  sets  one 
group  of  men  in  conflict  with  others  without  offering  any  satis- 
factory solution  for  the  misery  which  this  conflict  occasions. 

The  subject  of  trusts  presents  an  insoluble  problem  when 
studied  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  happiness;  but  it  is 
full  of  valuable  lessons  when  studied  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  collectivist,  for  it  furnishes  not  only  demonstrative  proof 
of  the  fact  that  competition  is  necessarily  attended  by  over- 
production and  waste,  but  also  figures  showing  the  extent  of 
the  evil  in  both  cases. 

3.    Prices 

The  principal  advantage  claimed  by  individualists  for  com- 
petition in  industry  is  that  it  tends  automatically  to  keep 
prices  at  a  reasonable  figure.  It  is  not  contended  that  compe- 
tition keeps  prices  constant;  the  fluctuation  of  prices  is  too 
obvious  to  permit  of  such  a  contention;  but  it  is  claimed  that 
under  the  salutary  influence  of  competition,  though  prices  may 
occasionally  go  far  above  a  reasonable  figure  and  even  fall  below 
cost,  there  is  a  tendency  to  return  to  what  is  called  a  normal 
price.  By  normal  price  is  generally  understood  a  price  that 
will  cover  cost  of  production  and  a  reasonable  profit.  Classical 
economists  call  this  "  natural  "  price,  because  it  is  the  price 
towards  which  fluctuations  naturally  tend.  Professor  Clark  ^ 
prefers  to  call  this  price  "  static. "     He  describes  the  industrial 

1  The  Distribution  of  Wealth,  by  Professor  John  Bates  Clark,  p.  vi. 


548  APPENDIX 

•world  as  in  a  perpetual  state  of  "  change  and  progress." 
Because  of  this  state  of  change  and  progress,  standards  of 
wages  and  of  interest  and  of  profits  vary.  ' '  But  there  are 
normal  standards  to-day.  In  the  midst  of  all  changes  there 
are  at  work  forces  that  fix  rates  to  which,  at  any  one  moment, 
wages  and  interest  tend  to  conform.  However  stormy  may 
be  the  ocean,  there  is  an  ideal  level  surface  projecting  itself 
through  the  waves,  and  the  actual  surface  of  the  turbulent 
water  fluctuates  about  it.  There  are  likewise  static  standards 
with  which,  in  the  most  turbulent  markets,  actual  values, 
wages,   and  interest  tend  to  coincide.  " 

Professor  Clark  assumes  that  the  industrial  sea  must  continue 
always  to  be  swept  by  hurricanes,  and  its  shores  strewn  with 
wrecks  of  bankruptcy  and  victims  of  irregular  employment; 
and  although  he  does  not  in  terms  say  it,  the  competitive 
system  is  silently  recognised  to  constitute  the  "  cave  of  the 
winds  "  which  lashes  our  industrial  sea  with  conflicting  gales, 
tornadoes,   and  typhoons. 

It  is  by  no  means  sure,  however,  that  competition  in  the 
aggravated  form  now  in  operation  is  a  necessary  element  even 
of  the  competitive  system;  it  is  conceivable  that  its  capacity 
for  mischief  may  be  much  diminished  by  the  application  to 
economic  conditions  of  intelligence  and  art.  There  are  two 
methods  under  which  the  evils  attending  competition  can  be 
diminished  or  eliminated:  one  is  purely  economic;  the  other  is 
partly  economic  and  partly  political.  It  is  with  the  first  of 
these  two  that  we  have  to  deal  in  studying  trusts,  for  an 
examination  of  the  efi'ect  of  trusts  upon  prices  will  lead  to  the 
conclusion  that,  once  the  trust  is  firmly  established,  it  produces 
a  lull  in  the  industrial  storm;  it  may  be  that  the  lull  is  a 
temporary  one,  but  lull  it  is;  and  a  method  by  which  such 
a  lull  is  secured  deserves  the  careful  attention  of  social 
economists. 

Professor  Jenks  prepared  for  the  Industrial  Commission 
a  table  of  the  prices  of  articles  which  had  given  rise  to  trusts, 
showing  the  fluctuations  of  these  prices  from  month  to  month. 
These  charts  are  reproduced  by  Professor  Jenks  in  his  book 
on  the  trust  problem.     The  principal  lines  in  these  charts  are 


APPENDIX  549 

three :  the  highest  line  indicates  the  price  of  the  manufactured 
article,  the  line  next  below  indicates  the  price  of  the  raw  material, 
and  the  lowest  line  of  all  indicates  the  difference  between  the 
price  of  the  raw  material  and  the  price  of  the  manufactured 
article,  and  marks,  therefore,  at  every  month,  the  cost  of  manu- 
facture plus  profits  realised  at  the  prices  reigning  during  the 
month.  These  tables  constitute  a  record  of  the  influence  the 
trusts  have  had  upon  prices,  upon  cost  of  production,  and  upon 
profits  realised. 

The  first  impression  produced  by  a  glance  at  these  tables  is 
that  in  every  case  prices  have  on  the  whole  gone  down.  This 
lowering  of  prices  in  connection  with  all  articles  controlled 
by  trusts  cannot,  however,  be  put  to  the  credit  of  trusts;  the 
prices  of  articles  controlled  by  trusts  have  gone  down  because 
all  prices  have  gone  down,  probably  owing  to  the  demonetisa- 
tion of  silver  and  the  consequent  appreciation  of  currency. 
But  the  important  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  lowering 
of  prices  in  articles  controlled  by  trusts,  even  though  it  be 
explained  by  the  appreciation  of  currency,  is  that  trusts  have 
been  unable  to  resist  the  general  effect  of  the  appreciation  of 
currency  upon  general  prices;  in  other  words,  articles  manufac- 
tured by  trusts  have  obeyed  the  general  law ;  trusts  have  not 
been  strong  enough  to  resist  the  application  of  the  general  law. 
So  far,  therefore,  as  the  general  trend  towards  lower  prices 
which  characterises  the  last  quarter  of  the  last  century  is 
concerned,  trusts  have  been  powerless  to  resist  it;  to  this 
extent,   therefore,   trusts  have  not  dictated  prices. 

The  table  of  American  prices  of  sugar  shows  also  the  fluctua- 
tions in  the  prices  of  sugar  in  England  and  Germany ;  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  that  every  fluctuation  in  the  lines  of 
European  prices  is  reproduced  in  the  lines  showing  American 
prices.  When  the  raw  material  in  Europe  goes  down, 
the  raw  material  in  America  goes  down;  and  with  the 
reduction  of  the  raw  material  in  America  follows  a  reduc- 
tion in  the  refined  article;  so  that  all  the  lines,  whether 
of  refined  or  of  raw  sugar  in  America,  or  whether  of  refined  or 
of  raw  sugar  in  Germany  and  England,  move  up  and  down, 
with   negligible   variations,   together.     The   conclusion   to   be 


550  APPENDIX 

drawn  from  this  is  that  here  again  the  trusts  are  unable 
materially  to  affect  the  fluctuations  determined  by  the  world's 
production.  Mr.  Post,  commission-merchant  in  sugar,  testifies 
that  the  production  of  beet-root  sugar  in  Europe  chiefly 
determines  the  price  (Industrial  Commission,  pp.  153-158); 
and  against  this  dominating  influence  the  trust  is  powerless. 
Here  again  is  evidence  that  tends  to  show  how  untrue  it  is  that 
trusts  can  dictate  prices. 

A  more  analytical  inquiry  into  these  tables  of  prices  shows  a 
still  more  important  fact ;  namely,  that  competition  exercises  a 
wholesome  influence  over  trusts,  even  in  cases  where  actual 
competition  is  practically  nil.  It  exerts  this  influence  poten- 
tially ;  it  is  a  perpetual  menace  to  the  trust ;  and  prosperous 
trusts  have  learned  the  lesson  that  they  can  remain  pros- 
perous only  on  the  condition  of  keeping  prices  reasonable.  A 
brief  examination  of  three  of  these  tables  will  serve  to  illustrate 
this  fact:  the  sugar  trust  was  organised  at  the  close  of  1887 
after  a  period  of  low  prices  which  had  put  into  bankruptcy 
eighteen  out  of  forty  refineries.  During  1888  and  1889  prices 
of  sugar  went  up,  but  they  went  up  in  Europe  relatively  almost 
as  high  as  in  America,  the  rise  in  the  prices  being  determined 
mainly  by  the  shortage  in  the  sugar  crop;  in  other  words,  it 
was  the  raw  material  that  advanced  more  than  the  manufactured 
article.  Nevertheless,  the  absence  of  competition  enabled 
the  sugar  trust  to  manufacture  at  remunerative  prices,  and 
the  profits  made  during  1888  and  1889  were  undoubtedly  large, 
as  can  be  seen  by  reference  to  the  third  line,  which  indicates 
the  difi'erence  between  the  cost  of  the  raw  article  and  that  of 
the  refined.  The  result  of  the  high  profits  made  in  1888  and 
1889  was  to  encourage  competition.  Spreckels  became  an  active 
competitor  in  Philadelphia,  and  for  two  years  he  fought  the 
trust.  Prices  went  down,  but  they  went  down  in  great  part 
owing  to  a  reduction  in  the  price  of  raw  sugar.  Here  again  we 
must  have  recourse  to  the  third  line,  showing  the  diff"o,rence 
between  the  cost  of  the  raw  sugar  and  of  the  refined,  in  order  to 
determine  the  influence  of  competition  upon  profits.  It  will  be 
seen  by  reference  to  these  lines  that  profits  very  nearly  disap- 
peared during  this  period,  and  this  will  prepare  us  to  under- 


APPENDIX  551 

stand  why  in  1892  Spreckels  sold  out  to  the  trust.  This 
resulted  in  an  immediate  rise  in  profits,  and  this  rise  was 
maintained  from  1892  to  1898.  In  1898  Doscher  set  up  an 
independent  refinery,  and  Arbuckle  Brothers,  who  had  a 
patent  for  putting  up  packages  which  they  had  applied  up  to 
that  time  to  cofi"ee  alone,  went  into  the  sugar  business  because 
they  could  apply  this  patented  process  to  the  packing  of  sugar 
also.^  Since  that  time  these  competitors  have  remained  in  the 
field,  and  the  cost  of  manufacture  has  gone  down  and  remained 
for  eight  months  at  a  time  as  low  as  it  was  during  1895,  when 
eighteen  out  of  forty  refineries  failed.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  that,  notwithstanding  this  decline,  the  sugar  trust 
declared  last  year  a  dividend  of  twelve  per  cent.  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  that  prices  that  cause  ruin  under  a  regime 
of  free  competition  permit  of  the  payment  of  twelve  per 
cent  dividends  under  the  regime  of  such  combinations  as  the 
sugar  trust. 

The  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  this  examination  of  the  table 
of  prices  of  sugar  are  twofold :  — 

1.  That  although  trusts  may  eliminate  the  waste  that  at- 
tends competition  they  nevertheless  remain  subject  to  the 
salutary  influence  of  competition  in  posse  if  not  in  esse. 

2.  That  with  the  economy  effected  as  above  explained  the 
sugar  trust  can  manufacture  at  a  profit,  though  prices  fall  to  a 
point  which  involved  bankruptcy  under  the  system  of  free 
competition. 

If  we  want  a  startling  illustration  how  ineffectual  combina- 
tions are  to  maintain  prices  high  above  a  reasonable  figure,  we 
may  turn  to  the  table  of  prices  of  spirits  and  corn;  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  prices  that  prevailed  under  the  auspices  of  the 
whiskey  trust.  The  original  organisers  of  combinations  in 
this  article  were  men  of  more  audacity  than  prudence;  they 
conceived  that  they  had  found  through  the  instrumentality  of 
combination  a  system  by  means  of  which  they  could  raise  prices 
far  beyond  a  reasonable  figure  and  maintain  them  there.  The 
result  proved  disastrous.  We  have  but  to  glance  at  the  tables 
to  see  how  disastrous.     Prices  are  pushed  up  in  1882  and  1883 

1  Report  of  Industrial  Commission,  testimony  of  Mr.  Jarvis,  138-142. 


552  APPENDIX 

only  to  fall  fifty  per  cent  in  1884;  they  are  pushed  up  by 
a  new  reorganisation  at  the  close  of  1884  to  the  same  figure 
as  in  1883,  to  fall  once  more  fifty  per  cent  in  1885 ;  they  are 
pushed  up  by  another  combination  in  the  early  part  of  1887 
only  to  fall  fifty  per  cent  at  the  close  of  the  year;  they  are 
pushed  up  in  1888  only  to  fall  more  than  fifty  per  cent  in 
1889.  Fluctuations  of  this  extravagant  character  continue  until 
the  organisation  of  the  American  Spirits  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany in  1895,  when  the  business  came  into  the  hands  of  direc- 
tors who  had  learned  that  prices  could  not  by  combination 
be  maintained  immoderately  above  a  reasonable  profit.  Since 
then  exaggerated  fluctuations  have  disappeared,  and  the  trust 
has  become  continuously  prosperous. 

As  regards  the  Standard  Oil  trust,  the  Moloch  among  trusts, 
whose  power  as  regards  prices  is  deemed  to  be  such  that  it  is 
commonly  stated  that  the  directors  meet  every  morning  to  fix, 
according  to  their  caprice,  the  price  that  is  to  rule  over  the  en- 
tire civilised  world,  —  if  we  glance  over  the  table  of  prices  of 
crude  and  refined  oil  we  shall  find  exactly  the  same  forces  oper- 
ating as  have  been  already  pointed  out  in  connection  with 
the  other  trusts.  There  is  the  general  decline  of  prices ;  there 
is  the  first  loose  combination  of  1872  raising  prices  momenta- 
rily, but  these  prices  decline  in  consequence  of  the  opening  of 
the  Butler  County  oil  wells  in  1873  and  1874.  Again  in  1891 
and  1892  we  find  high  prices  opening  up  the  Macdouald  field, 
and  the  exceptionally  high  prices  of  1895  bring  the  competition 
of  the  Pure  Oil  Company  into  the  field,  —  a  competition  which 
exists  at  the  present  day. 

Trusts  may  keep  actual  competition  down,  may  rid  compe- 
tition of  its  worst  features  in  the  shape  of  over-production, 
bankruptcy,  and  irregularity  of  employment;  but  they  have 
heretofore  always  operated  under  the  menace  of  competition, 
and  this  menace  seems  up  to  the  present  day  to  have  kept 
prices  from  permanently  becoming  extortionate.  Whether 
potential  competition  can  continue  to  do  this  will  be  considered 
in  the  summary  with  which  this  Appendix  closes. 


APPENDIX  553 


III.   SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  in  this  volume  that  the  an- 
archy which  attended  the  decay  of  the  Roman  empire  came  to 
an  end,  not  through  the  sword  of  Charlemagne  or  the  genius 
of  Hildebrand,  but  through  the  combinations  of  industrious 
artisans  who  profited  by  the  quarrels  of  Church  and  Crown  to 
organise  themselves  into  combinations,  guilds,  and  corporations. 
These  combinations  were  the  application  of  intelligence  and  art 
to  industry.  They  undertook  to  adjust  production  to  demand 
by  limiting  the  persons  admitted  to  every  trade;  and  they  un- 
dertook also  to  secure  a  high  standard  of  excellence  by  the 
careful  education  of  every  candidate  for  admission.  Unre- 
stricted competition  was  by  this  system  eliminated  and  con- 
fined within  the  limits  which  every  guild  determined  for  itself. 
The  prosperity  which  attended  the  great  guilds  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  the  control  they  acquired  of  municipal  government, 
bear  witness  not  only  to  the  judgment  of  the  men  who  governed 
these  guilds,  but  to  the  guild  principle  itself;  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  application  of  intelligence  to  the  adjustment  of  production 
to  demand.  It  has  also  been  shown  how  the  guilds  abused 
their  power,  so  that  the  tyranny  of  the  corporation  became  as 
intolerable  as  that  of  the  throne. 

The  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  marked  by  a  revolt 
agamst  economic  as  well  as  against  political  despotism.  The 
obvious  remedy  for  economic  despotism  was  liberty  of  con- 
tract; liberty  of  contract  was  preached  by  the  physiocrats, 
received  the  Aveighty  support  of  Adam  Smith  in  England, 
and  became  the  fetich  of  the  Manchester  School.  But  no 
sooner  had  the  Assemblee  Nationale  in  France  enacted  a  law 
not  only  suppressing  guilds,  but  actually  forbidding  all  associ- 
ations of  persons  in  the  same  employment,  and  even  punish- 
ing such  associations  by  imprisonment,  than  we  see  such 
associations,  notwithstanding,  springing  up  all  over  France. 
These  associations  took  the  form  in  France  of  associations 
of  employers  in  the  same  trade  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
the  interests  of  the  trade ;  and  as  these  employers'  associations 


554  APPENDIX 

put  the  employers  at  a  great  advantage  over  the  employees, 
employers'  associations  gave  rise  to  employees'  associations, 
which  took  the  form  of  benefit  societies,  though  in  fact  they 
were  organised  for  the  purpose  of  resistance. 

In  England  the  opposite  takes  place,  —  that  is  to  say,  it  is 
the  workmen  who  combine  first  to  resist  the  Iron  Law ;  and  the 
employers,  having  more  or  less  successfully  at  first  used  Parlia- 
ment to  prevent  trade  unions,  but  at  last  failed,  were  bound 
to  organise  themselves  in  order  successfully  to  resist  the  grow- 
ing power  of  the  unions.  Thus  in  England  we  see  daily 
growing  in  power  employers'  associations  confronted  by  trade 
unions  until  at  last  the  two  combine  in  a  common  agreement, 
the  employers  not  to  employ  any  workmen  save  those  forming 
part  of  the  trade  unions,  and  the  workmen  agreeing  not  to 
work  for  any  employer  save  those  who  belong  to  the  em- 
ployers' association.  These  combinations  of  employer  and  em- 
ployee are  known  as  Trade  Alliances  in  Birmingham,  and  have 
succeeded  in  crushing  out  competition  as  effectually  and  practi- 
cally as  the  mediaeval  guild ;  and  so  after  a  century  of  so-called 
progress  industry  has  returned  to  the  point  from  which  it 
started. 

Liberty  of  contract  seems  therefore  to  be  impossible  under 
the  competitive  system.  Free  competition  drives  the  weak  to 
combine  against  the  strong;  and  combination  of  one  element  in 
the  industrial  field  obliges  combination  of  the  element  against 
which  the  first  combination  is  made.  Moreover,  the  principle 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  upon  which  the  competitive  system 
is  based,  favours  these  combinations,  for  in  the  struggle  it  is 
the  combination  most  intelligently  adapted  to  its  end  which 
survives. 

Now  in  the  economic  field  competition  sets  two  elements  of 
society  against  one  another:  the  effort  of  the  purchaser  is  to 
get  most  goods  for  least  money,  whereas  it  is  the  interest  of  the 
producer  to  give  least  goods  for  most  money ;  competition,  how- 
ever, is  on  the  side  of  the  purchaser,  and  tends  to  force  the 
producer  to  give  more  and  more  for  less  and  less.  This  per- 
petual tendency  can  be  successfully  met  only  by  reducing  the 
cost  of  production  to  the  utmost;  and  cost  of  production  can 


APPENDIX  555 

be  diminished  only  by  eliminating  competition  through  such 
combinations  as  we  are  here  studying  under  the  name  of 
trusts. 

Unless  the  foregoing  study  of  trusts  is  altogether  wrong,  the 
extent  to  which  combination  prevails  in  a  country  is  a  direct 
measure  of  its  intelligence  and  art.  It  is  because  competition 
is  more  keen  and  intelligent  in  France  than  in  Spain  that  we 
see  in  France  the  combinations  that  are  known  under  the  name 
of  "  comptoirs ;  "  it  is  because  competition  is  still  more  keen 
and  intelligent  in  Germany  than  in  France  that  we  have  com- 
binations still  more  prevalent  in  Germany  under  the  name  of 
"  kartels ;  "  it  is  because  competition  is  equally  keen  and  mtelli- 
gent  in  England  that  we  have  such  organisations  as  the  Borax 
Consolidated,  The  Yorkshire  Wool  Combers,  Bradford  Dyers' 
Association,  Calico  Printers'  Association,  etc. ;  ^  and  it  is 
because  competition  is  more  intelligent  and  more  keen  in  the 
United  States  than  in  any  country  in  the  world  that  we  have 
combination  brought  to  its  highest  expression  in  the  trusts  that 
we  are  here  examining. 

But  we  have  up  to  this  point  examined  trusts  only  in  their 
intranational  aspect,  —  that  is  to  say,  as  to  their  working  within 
the  nation;  we  have  not  considered  the  effect  of  trusts  upon 
international  relations,  —  that  is  to  say,  as  to  their  working  be- 
yond national  limits.  Here,  perhaps,  we  have  to  encounter  a 
grave  danger. 

Competition  is  no  longer  confined  within  national  lines;  the 
United  States  and  England  compete  as  consciously  and  delib- 
erately in  such  industries  as  the  building  of  railroads,  bridges, 
ships,  and  engines,  as  the  "  Bon  Marche "  and  the  "  Louvre  " 
in  Paris,  Whiteley's  and  Peter  Robinson  in  London,  and  Macy 
and  Wanamaker  in  New  York.  And  in  the  struggle  for  busi- 
ness it  is  the  national  industry  which  is  organised  in  a  manner 
to  produce  with  the  greatest  economy  that  must  in  the  end  pre- 
vail. It  is  because  production  of  iron  and  steel  in  the  United 
States   is   better  organised  than  in  England  that,   in  spite  of 

1  An  article  by  Robert  Donald  in  the  "Review  of  Reviews  "  for  Novem- 
ber, 1900,  gives  an  excellent  account  of  the  extent  to  which  combination 
is  replacing  competition  in  British  industry. 


556  APPENDIX 

higher  wages  in  America,  the  United  States  can  successfully 
compete  with  England  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  So  long  as 
international  as  well  as  intranational  competition,  whether  in 
esse  or  in  posse,  stands  guard  to  prevent  prices  from  rising 
beyond  reasonable  limits,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  not 
only  do  trusts  eliminate  the  waste  of  competition  without  the 
public  losing  its  advantages,  but  the  necessary  forces  at  work  in 
the  economic  field  seem  of  a  character  to  promote  the  organisa- 
tion of  trusts  with  a  view  to  producing  a  maximum  of  effi- 
ciency over  the  whole  industrial  field,  or  over  that  part  of  it  to 
which  such  combinations  as  trusts  are  applicable. 

Unfortunately  the  public  is  not  protected  by  the  assurance 
that  international  competition  Avill  always  stand  guard  over  its 
interests,  for  trusts  have  already  stretched  beyond  national 
boundaries  to  organise  international  combinations  as  to  the 
danger  of  which  the  public  cannot  too  soon  become  alive. 

In  order  properly  to  appreciate  this  danger  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  examine  more  critically  just  what  this  potential  compe- 
tition is  that  constitutes  a  public  safeguard  against  high  prices. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  twofold ;  namely,  competition  within 
national  boundaries,  and  competition  without  national  bounda- 
ries. As  regards  the  first  it  has  been  shown  that,  so  far  in  the 
United  States,  competition,  whether  actual  or  potential,  has 
succeeded  in  preventing  permanently  high  prices.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  it  will  always  hereafter  be  as  successful:  or 
that  because  it  has  been  successful  in  the  United  States  it  will 
be  equally  successful  in  other  countries.  Competition  against 
such  accumulated  and  organised  forces  as  present  themselves  in 
trusts  requires  great  courage  — nay,  audacity  —  as  well  as  judg- 
ment and  perseverance.  These  qualities  so  combined  are  rare. 
The  United  States  so  far  has  found  them  when  occasion 
offered;  but  it  may  not  always  find  them;  indeed,  the  tendency 
of  trusts  to  destroy  individual  initiative  is  likely  to  make  these 
qualities  more  and  more  rare.  Again,  while  these  qualities  so 
combined  have  been  found  in  the  United  States,  it  is  by  no 
means  sure  that  they  are  likely  to  be  found  in  other  countries. 
In  France  notably  there  is  a  reaction  to-day  against  great 
commercial  enterprises.     The  failure  of  the  Panama  Canal  pro- 


APPENDIX  557 

ject,  failure,  too,  in  late  attempts  to  open  mines,  have  created 
in  France  a  strong  indisposition  to  commercial  undertakings 
that  are  attended  by  heavy  risk.  For  example,  although  the 
Anglo-American  syndicate  that  controls  copper  has  pushed  the 
price  of  copper  to  an  extremely  profitable  figure,  financiers  in 
France,  though  clearly  alive  to  the  large  profits  offered  to  the 
openers  of  new  mines,  for  the  most  part  decline  to  undertake 
the  struggle  with  the  syndicate  which  they  think  such  opening 
would  involve.  It  is  true  that  the  absence  of  the  enterprise 
necessary  to  fight  trusts  probably  involves  also  an  absence  of 
the  enterprise  necessary  to  create  them.  "  Comptoirs  "  exist 
in  France  in  but  few  industries,  and  then  only  in  such  as 
particularly  lend  themselves  to  such  combinations.  But  the 
absence  of  the  enterprise  in  France  necessary  to  fight  trusts 
may  have  a  bearing  on  the  trust  problem  in  America  when  we 
study  the  second  class  of  competition  which  has  heretofore 
constituted  a  safeguard  against  high  prices ;  namely,  competition 
abroad. 

Foreign  competition  has  doubtless  exercised  a  powerful 
influence  in  preventing  permanent  high  prices  in  the  United 
States.  Intranational  competition,  such  as  that  of  the  Pure 
Oil  Company,  doubtless  exerts  a  salutary  influence  on  Standard 
Oil  prices,  but  its  influence  can  probably  be  neglected  by  the 
side  of  the  competition  of  Bakou.  The  sugar  trust  is  doubt- 
less protected  by  a  high  tariff,  but  at  any  rate  the  tariff 
represents  a  limit  to  prices  beyond  which  the  sugar  trust 
cannot  go  so  long  as  it  has  to  compete  with  the  refineries  of 
Europe.  What,  however,  would  happen  were  the  Standard 
Oil  to  combine  with  the  oil-producers  of  Bakou  ?  And  should 
our  government,  convinced  by  the  probably  erroneous  theory 
that  the  tariff  is  the  parent  of  trusts,  in  obedience  to  the 
present  outcry  against  trusts,  suppress  the  tariff  on  sugar, 
would  such  suppression  not  inevitably  lead  to  a  combination  of 
American  with  European  refiners  by  the  side  of  which  the 
present  sugar  trust  would  in  power  be  as  a  child  1  There  are 
no  insurmountable  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  combina- 
tion. The  petroleum  business  of  Europe  is  practically  in  the 
hands  of  two  firms;  an  understanding  between  three  men  — 


558  APPENDIX 

Eockefeller,  Kobel,  and  Eothschild — would  put  an  end  to  inter- 
national competition  in  petroleum.  The  same  is  true,  though 
in  a  less  degree,  of  sugar;  in  France,  Germany,  and  England, 
prices  of  refined  sugar  are  determined  by  comparatively  few 
men.  Nor  are  we  to-day  without  examples  of  international 
trusts,  as,  for  example,  the  Anglo-American  Cotton-Thread 
trust  and  the  Anglo-American  syndicate  which  practically  con- 
trols the  production  of  copper  throughout  the  entire  world. 

The  power,  social  and  political,  which  such  international 
trusts  would  wield,  would  be  unexampled  in  history.  Already 
the  millionaires  who  endow  our  universities  are  exerting  their 
influence  on  higher  education.  They  cannot  be  expected  to 
look  with  favour  on  professors  who  recommend  their  overthrow ; 
many  resignations  have  therefore  of  late  been  demanded,  and 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  our  economists  kept  his  chair 
only  by  demonstrating  that  his  teaching  deprecated  socialism 
rather  than  encouraged  it.  And  if  millionaires  already  have 
laid  their  hands  on  our  higher  education,  it  is  not  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  they  will  next  turn  their  attention  to  our  public 
schools ;  if  not  to  destroy  education  as  once  the  Church  did,  at 
least  to  pervert  it  as  do  the  Jesuits  to-day. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  indulge  at  once  in  needless  alarm  on 
this  subject.  The  day  is  probably  far  off  when  trusts  will  be 
powerful  enough  to  attack  our  public-school  system.  But 
the  measures  suggested  as  a  remedy  for  trust  abuses  may  be 
the  very  ones  to  accelerate  the  coming  of  the  evil  day.  Un- 
doubtedly the  most  obvious  and  perhaps  at  the  present  time 
the  most  reasonable  remedy  proposed  is  publicity  and  surveil- 
lance. Unfortunately  neither  can  be  enforced  except  through 
the  government.  Our  legislatures  must  pass  laws  requir- 
ing them,  and  officials  must  administer  the  laws  when  enacted. 
The  effect  of  the  present  demand  for  publicity  and  surveillance 
can  be  stated  beforehand :  it  will  compel  the  trust  to  control 
the  government.  How  easily  it  can  do  this  was  illustrated  in 
the  United  States  Senate  during  Cleveland's  administration; 
and  it  is  important  to  note  that  corruption,  as  commonly  under- 
stood, had  little  to  do  with  this  control.  The  Senate  voted 
measures  favourable  to   the  sugar  trust  because  it  was  com- 


APPENDIX  559 

posed  of  men  who  were  affiliated  socially  as  well  as  financially 
with  the  trust  managers;  because  a  turn  could  be  made  on  the 
stock  market  by  patriotic  protection  of  an  American  industry; 
because  the  money  power  which  endows  churches,  hospitals, 
and  universities  must  be  held  up ;  because  intelligence,  culture, 
refinement,  and  the  highest  conceptions  of  "  social  justice  "  are 
leagued  against  the  principles  of  disorder  preached  by  the 
selfish  and  discontented  opposition.^  And  then,  if  there  be 
required  a  more  substantial  argument,  if  there  be  a  needy 
senator  still  unconvinced,  a  single  trust  —  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  —  is  in  possession  of  a  fund  for  convincing  him,  of 
$48,000,000  a  year!^  And  if  these  things  are  done  in  the 
green  tree,  what  will  be  done  in  the  dry,  —  when  international 
trusts  will  be  as  much  more  powerful  than  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  to-day,  as  the  Standard  Oil  Company  to-day  is  more 
powerful  than  Rockefeller,  Andrews,  and  Teacher  in  1870, 
with  a  puny  capital  of  $1,000,000,  and  a  pitiful  production  of 
600  barrels  a  day? 

It  is  very  much  to  be  feared  that  the  more  government 
attempts  to  control  trusts,  the  more  powerful  trusts  will 
become,  for  the  attempt  will  leave  trusts  no  alternative  but  to 
control  the  government.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that 
the  more  trusts  have  been  attacked,  the  more  they  have  been 
compelled  by  these  attacks  to  consolidate,  and  every  step  in 
consolidation  has  been  an  advance  in  strength.  The  first  com- 
bination of  sugar-refineries  was  the  one  that  gave  rise  to  the 
name  of  trust;  it  did  not  involve  loss  of  identity  for  the 
refiners  in  the  combination ;  but  when  the  system  of  creating  a 
voting  trust  was  declared  illegal  by  the  courts  they  were 
driven  to  reorganise,  and  by  successive  steps  have  at  last 
abandoned  the  principle  of  maintaining  the  identity  of  the 
combining  refineries  and  assumed  in  fact  as  well  as  in  form 

^  Read  on  this  subject  the  unqualified  approval  of  the  competitive 
system  expressed  by  Dr.  WiUoughby  in  his  recent  book  on  Social 
Justice,  p.  304. 

2  The  Standard  Oil  Company  declared  a  dividend  of  thirty  per  cent 
on  a  stock  capital  of  $100,000,000  in  1898,  of  thirty-three  per  cent  in 
1899,  and  of  forty-eight  per  cent  in  1900. 


560  APPENDIX 

the  organisation  of  a  single  corporation.  Such,  too,  has  heen 
the  effect  of  anti-trust  legislation.  Every  attack  has  compelled 
trusts   to   become   more   formidable. 

"What,  then,  is  the  last  word  to  be  said  about  trusts  1  Trusts 
and  trade  alliances  furnish  evidence  to  show  that  men  are  too 
clearly  alive  to  the  evils  that  attend  competition  any  longer  to 
tolerate  these  evils.  Trade  alliances  are  not  likely  to  survive ; 
they  involve  the  exercise  of  too  much  self-control  in  the 
presence  of  too  great  a  temptation.  Already  the  bedstead 
combination  — ■  the  classic  instance  of  trade  alliances  —  has 
broken  up.  The  very  necessity,  however,  which  tends  to  break 
up  trade  alliances  tends  to  promote  trusts  —  the  necessity  of 
economical  production.  International  competition  will  favour 
the  national  industry  which  is  the  most  economically  organised. 
Trusts  tend,  therefore,  to  become  more  and  more  powerful 
through  international  competition  iintil  at  last  they  take  the 
final  step,  and,  by  overstepping  national  boundaries,  destroy  the 
international  safeguard  against  high  prices.  The  power  which 
highly  organised  international  trusts  would  exercise  cannot 
to-day  be  named  or  even,  perhaps,  imagined.  It  may  be  far 
off,  but  development  has  lately  been  of  startling  rapidity. 
The  first  combination  effected  by  Eockefeller  in  1870  had  a 
capital  of  $1,000,000;  the  Standard  Oil  Company  to-day  is 
paying  a  dividend  of  forty-eight  per  cent  on  $100,000,000. 
Every  effort  by  government  to  control  trusts  will  compel 
trusts  to  own  the  government.  Humanity  has  decided  to  es- 
cape from  the  evils  of  competition.  It  can  do  so  in  one  of 
two  ways,  —  economically  through  trusts,  or  politically  through 
collectivism. 

**  Under  which  king,  Byzantine  ?  " 


I 


INDEX 


1.  GOVERNMENT,   OR  HUMAN  EVOLUTION 

2.  JUSTICE 

3.  INDIVIDUALISM  AND  COLLECTIVISM 

A  BrLITY",  Character  of  the  Ability  capable  of  profiting  by  the  oppor- 
tunities of  wealth,  i.  98. 
Accumulation. 

Collectivism,  Elimination  of   private  property,  the  accumulation  of 
which  could  control  the  services  of  others,  ii.  263, 372,  373,  412. 
Dividend  Coupon  and  Labour  Cheque  System,  ii.  333,  334,  417. 
Instinct  of,  in  Animals,  ii.  89. 
Acquired  Traits,  Transmission  by  inheritance,  Theories  of. 
Brown-Se'quard's  Experiments,  i.  63. 
Cope-Osboru,  i.  60,  61,  64. 
Lamarck,  i.  58. 
Weismann,  i.  60,  62,  63. 
Act  of  Justice.     (See  Justice.) 
Adaptation  of  Function  to  Environment,  Darwinian  and  Lamarckian 

Theories,  i.  58-65. 
Adulteration,  Falsehood  of  fact  induced  by  competition,  ii.  135. 
Advertising,  Economy  that  would  result  from  the  elimination  of  com- 
petition, ii.  276,  546. 
Agnosticism,  ii.  464,  472,  502. 
Agriculture,  Position   of,  during  the  stage  of  Partial  Collectivism,  ii. 

422. 
Amiens,  Struggle  for  self-government,  ii.  62,  63. 
Anarchy. 

Definition,  ii.  70. 

Eousseau's  teaching  on  Natural  Rights  resulting  in  Anarchism,  i.  26. 
Ancestor  Worship,  i.  183,  186. 

Anglican  Church,  Attitude  towards  Faith,  ii.  471,  note. 

36 


562  INDEX 

Animals. 

Accumulation,  Instinct  of,  ii.  89. 

Instinct,  i.  346. 

Man  differentiated  from  Animals. 

Additional  central  nervous  system,  ii.  193. 
Effort,  Capacity  for,  i.  357. 
Habit,  Power  to  resist,  i.  347  ;  ii.  473. 
Eeligion,  i.  82,  84. 
Property,  Recognition  of,  ii.  372. 

Habits  of  social  and  unsocial  animals  contrasted,  ii.  90,  91. 
Punishment  of  Theft,  ii.  18.3,  tiote,  223. 
Reasoning  Power,  Dr.  Thorndike's  Experiments,  i.  166. 
Self-restraint,  Capacity  for,  i.  116. 

(See  also  titles  Caknivoka  and  Heebivora,  Competition,  Pbeda- 
TORT  System,  etc.) 
Ant  Communities,  i.  82,  note. 

Competition  without  and  co-operation  within,  ii.  182. 
Private  Property,  Sense  of,  obliterated,  ii.  90. 
Sexual  Jealousy,  i.  110,  187. 
Anthracite  Trust,  History  of,  showing  evil  of  over-production,  ii.  533. 
Apprenticeship. 

Guilds,  Medieval,  ii.  104. 

Trade  Unions,  Apprenticeship  an  unsolved  problem,  ii.  138. 
Arab  Individualism,  ii.  21. 

Architecture,  Necessity  for  State  Intervention,  ii.  377. 
Aristotle. 

Forms  of  Government,  Classification,  i.  253,  note. 
Justice,  Definition,  i.  317. 
Virtue,  Definition,  ii.  496. 
Art,  Influence  of  commercialism  and  objection   that  collectivism  would 
be  prejudicial  to  Art,  ii.  374. 
Power  outside  of  Nature. 

Confusion  the  result  of  not  distinguishing  Art  from  Nature,  i. 

37,  49. 
Nature  distinguished  from  the  conscious  effort  of  Man.     (See 
Effort.) 
Artificial  Human   Environment.     (See  Environment,   Human  Arti- 
ficial Environment.) 
Arts,  Advance  in,  causing  development  of  one  race  at  the  expense   of 

another,   i.   142. 
Association,  Law  of,  i.  247,  264. 

(See  also  Government.) 
Athenian   Civilisation,   Development   of.      (See   Greece    and    Rome, 

Development  of  Civilisation.) 
Australia,   South,    Transport  and   Sale  of  farm  produce    through  the 
agency  of  the  State,  ii.  242. 


INDEX  563 

"DACILLI   of    Disease,   Struggle  for  Life  between  Man   and  Micro- 
organisms, i.  96. 
Bacon  and  the  Greek  Notion  of  Nature,  i.  43. 
Bankers,  Work  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  281. 
Bankruptcies,  Percentage  of,  in  new  business  ventures,  ii.  124. 
Bees. 

"  Queen  Bee,"  Error  in  the  use  of  the  word  "  queen,"  i.  212,  note. 
Sexual  Jealousy,  i.  110,  187,  276. 
Begging,  Penalties  for,  in  the  16th  Century,  ii.  108. 
Benefit  Societies  in  France  after  the   Suppression  of  the   Guilds,   ii. 

5.54. 
Beudant's  Experiments  on  the  Adaptation  of  Animal  Organisms  to  New 

Environments,  i.  158. 
Birmingham  Alliances,  ii.  215,  216,  note,  554. 

Folly  of  free  contract  theory,  Birmingham  Alliances  demonstrating, 

ii.  161. 
Reproducing  the  essential  features  of  the  Guild,  ii.  150,  151. 
Birth,  Social  classification  by,  superseded  by  wealth  classification,  i.  194, 

197;  ii.  96. 
Bishops,  Age  of,  ii.  56. 

Boot  and  Shoe  Trade,  Attempted  exclusion  of  boys,  ii.  140. 
Booth,  Mr.  C,  On  Cheap  Labour  as  the  cause  of  Expansion  in  certain 

Trades,  ii.  145. 
Bounties,  Expedient  for  escaping  pressure  of  competition,  ii.  161. 
Boy  Labour,  Attempted  exclusion  of,  ii.  140. 
Brokers,  Abolition  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  281. 
Brown- S 6 guard's  Experiments  on  the  Transmission  of  Acquired  Traits, 

i.  63. 
Burke  on  Chivalry,  ii.  76. 
Business  and  Pohtics,  Corruption  resulting  from  alliance  between,  ii. 

162,   166,  234. 
Buying  Cheaply  —  Is  it  wrong?  ii.  113,  114. 

/~*APITAL. 

Cheek  on,  through  the  alleged  freedom  of  the  labour  contract,  i.  291. 

Distribution  of  capital,  not  its  accumulation,  from  which  injustice  re- 
sults, ii.  112. 

Fluidity,  Movement  of  capital  from  one  industry  to  another  main- 
taining the  normal  rate  of  profit,  ii.  132. 

Income  from  investment,  Injustice  of  System,  ii.  116,  125,  478. 

Tyranny  of,  ii.  Ill,  230. 
Capitalists. 

Capitalist  not  responsible  for  the  evils  attending  capital,  ii.  Ill,  112, 
487. 

Improving  condition  of  workingmen.  Possibility  of,  under  existing 
industrial  conditions,  Hypothetical  illustration,  ii.  113,  116,  125. 


564  INDEX 

Capitalists  (continued). 

luventions,  Capitalists'  interest  in  suppressing,  li.  288. 
Oppression  of  the  Market  upon  the  Capitalist,  Enlightenment  of  the 
workiugmau,  ii.  230. 
Camivora  and  Herbivora. 

Characteristics  and  conditions  of  life,  i.  77. 

Human  Artificial  Environment,  Effect  of,  as  compared  with  that  of 

Nature,  i.  100,  332. 
Man  blending  in  himseK  the  characteristics  of  both  orders,  i.  78,  79. 
Institution  of  private  property  eliminating  the  opposing  instincts 
of  ferocity  and  servility,  ii.  94. 
Ceylon,  Wood  Veddaps  of,  ii.  217. 
Character,  i.  76,  note. 

Charlemagne's  Ecclesiastical  Policy,  ii.  56. 
Chaucer's  Description  of  a  Knight,  ii.  78. 
Chinese. 

Commercial  Competition,  Danger  of,  ii.  130,  136,  note,  150. 
Destruction  of  variability  owing  to  uniformity  of  thought  and  environ- 
ment, i.  219. 
Chivalry,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  pp.  75-86. 
Burke  on,  ii.  76. 

Decay  of  the  idea  of  Chivalry,  ii.  82. 
Freeman,  Prof.,  on,  ii.  76. 
Honour,  Code  of,  ii.  85. 
Knighthood,  ii.  78. 
Love. 

Code  of  Love,  ii.  82. 
Hound  Table,  Law  of,  ii.  79. 
"Woman,  Eole  of,  enhanced  by  Chivalry,  ii.  84. 

Love  of  woman  substituted  for  the  Love  of  God,  ii.  81. 
Cholesbury  Parish,  Pauperism  in,  in  1833,  ii.  109. 
Christian  Church. 

Anglican  Church,  Attitude  towards  Faith,  ii.  471,  note. 

Bishops,  Age  of,  ii.  56. 

Characteristics  distinguishing,  in  spite  of  corruption  by  compromise 

with  paganism,  ii.  48. 
Charlemagne's  Ecclesiastical  Policy,  ii.  56. 
Christ's   Conception  of  the  Churcli,  Realisation  of,  in  her  position 

under  her  most  ilkistrious  prelates,  ii.  45. 
Crusades  and  the  Church,  ii.  60. 
Guizot  on,  ii.  46. 

Organisation  and  differences  on  belief.  Conflicts  arising  from,  ii.  40. 
Papal  Power,  Rise  of,  ii.  56. 
Private  Property  and  the  Church,  ii.  1 70. 

Roman  Empire  and  the  Churcli,  Alliance  between,  i.  201,  204,207,  232. 
Saving  force  preserving  wholesomeness   of  the  Church   throughout 
every  corrupting  environment,  ii.  57,  58. 


INDEX  565 

Christian  Church  (continued). 

Science  and  the  Church,  Conflict  between,  ii.  464,  490. 
Social  and  Political  Keform,  Power  of  the  Church  to-day,  ii.  59,  note. 
Temporal  Power,  ii.  42,  45,  49,  55. 
Unchristian  character  of,  ii.  59. 
Wealth,  Corrupting  influence  of,  ii.  99. 
Christian  Science,  Modern  form  of  Miracle,  ii.  29,  31. 
Christianity. 

Constantine  adopting,  ii.  49,  51. 

Foreign  Missions,  Attitude  towards,  i.  320,  322. 

Greece  and  Eome,  Morality  of,  compared  with,  ii.  204. 

Hypocrisy  a  characteristically  Christian  Vice,  ii.  52. 

Justin  Martyr's  Description,  ii.  39. 

Mohammedanism  and  Christianity  compared,  ii.  20,  38,  48. 

Political  Results,  i.  230. 

Profession  of,  serving  purposes  of  Ambition  and  Avarice,  ii.  41,  49, 

50,  55. 
Socialising  force  of,  ii.  43. 
City  Republics,  Rise  of,  in  Italy,  ii.  73,  100. 
Civilisation. 

Faith  as  a  controlling  force.  Difference  between  the  civilisation  of 

to-day  and  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  ii.  54. 
Patriarchal  System  the  origin  of  human  Civilisation,  Sir  H.  Maine's 

Theory,  i.  186,  187. 
Religion  a  social  Factor  in  early  Civilisation,  i.  183. 
Clark,  Prof.,  on  "  Static  "  Price,  ii.  548. 
Climate. 

Equalisation  of  Men,  Climate  an  obstacle,  i.  309. 

Man's  ability  to  resist  climatic  obstacles  by  artificial  environment,  i. 

91,  93. 
Natural  Selection  by,  i.  89,  95. 
Nature  adapting  function  to  environment,  i.  89,  92. 
Clubs  in  Favour  of  Good  Government,  Organisation  of,  in  New  York,  i. 

vi ;  ii.  164. 
•*  Coercive  Philanthropy,"  Spencer's  Denunciation,  i.  242. 
Coin  as  Medium  of  Exchange. 

Elimination  of  Corruption  by  substitution  of  Labour  Cheques,  ii.  419. 
Objections  to,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  416, 
Collectivism,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  ii.,  pp.  241,  ef  seq. 

Accumulation  of  private  property  which  could  control  the  services  of 
others,  Elimination  of,  ii.  263,372,  373,  412. 
Dividend  Coupon  and  Labour  Cheque  System,  ii.  333,  334,  417. 
Administration,  Machinery  of,  ii.  322. 
E.xternal  Policy,  ii.  328. 
Internal  Policy,  ii.  324. 
Party  System,  ii.  326. 


566  INDEX 

Collectivism  (continued). 

Agriculture,  Position  of,  ii.  422. 
Aim  of,  ii.  242,  255. 

Aspects  of  Collectivism  studied  in  the  present  work,  ii.  v,  454. 
Attitude  of  mind  necessary  to  a  fair  estimate  of  Collectivism,  ii.  248. 
Character  of  Collectivist  programme  differing  in  each  nation,  and 
differing  for  the  same  nation  in  different  phases  of  its  existence, 
ii.  511. 
Classification  of  Persons,   Difference   in   consideration   attached  to 

various  functions  in  the  State,  ii.  265,  299,  300. 
Collectivism  Proper,  ii.  401. 

Summary,  ii.  427. 
Common  Table  Proposal,  Injustice  of,  ii.  487. 
Conditions  upon  which  a  Co-operative  scheme  of  society  might  be 

combined  with  the  competitive  plan,  ii.  448. 
Corruption,  Elimination  of,  by  substituting  Labour  Cheques  for  Coin, 

ii.  419. 
Currency. 

Coin,  Objections  to,  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  ii.  416. 

Dividend  Coupons,  ii.  331,  334,  336,  402,  and  7iote. 

State  Orders,   Transferable  orders  on   public  stores  expressed 

in  money,  ii.  396. 
Voluntary  Labour  Cheques,  ii.  332,  335,  410,  417,  419. 
Definition,  ii.  4. 

Schaffle's  Definition,  ii.  250. 
Domestic  Service,  Question  of,  ii.  424. 
Economy  of,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  pp.  273-288. 
Business  that  could  be  dispensed  with,  ii.  279. 
Co.st  of  Administration,  ii.  292. 
Distribution,  ii.  273. 
Production,  ii.  284. 
Foreigners,  Exclusion  from  permanent  residence,  ii.  324. 
Franchise,  ii.  325. 
Ideal  Collectivism,  ii.  vi,  429. 

Proposed  Form  of,  ii.  253,  255,  256,  258. 
Immorality,  Diminution  in,  ii.  345. 
Income  of  the  Community. 

Distribution  in  proportion  to  the  utility  of  members  not  an  essen- 
tial feature  of  Collectivism,  ii.  251,  256,  257,  298. 
Extra   Services  to  the   State  receiving  extra  compensation,  ii. 

299. 
Rise  of  wages  of  manual  labourer  owing  to  increase  of  economy, 
ii.  409. 
Individualism  and  Collectivism. 
Alternative  adoption  of,  ii.  4. 
Rival  Economic  and  Political  Theories,  ii.  3,  14. 


INDEX  567 

Collectivism  {continued). 
Industrial  Conditions. 

Foreign  Trade,  ii.  337. 

Internal  Industrial  Conditions,  ii.  331 . 
Invention. 

Removal  of  all  stimulus,  alleged,  ii.  288. 

Tendency  of  invention  to  replace  work  involving  drudgery  by 
machinery,  ii.  290,  426. 
Labour.     (See  sub-heading  Work.) 
Land. 

State  Acquisition,  Methods  of,  ii.  420. 

Tenure  of,  ii.  243,  420. 
Leisure  secured  by,  ii.  303. 
Liberty,  Interference  with.  Objection  to  Collectivism,  ii.  348. 

Individualist  views,  "  A  Plea  for  Liberty,"  ii.  352,  355. 
Marriage,  Hostility  of  some  partisans  of  Collectivism,  ii.  341. 
Marx,  Karl,  and  the  Fabians,  Theories  of,  ii.  385. 
Meanings  of  the  word,    ii.  v. 
Mistaken  Notions  regarding  Collectivism,  ii.  243. 
Money,  Elimination  of.  Substituting  Service,  ii.  270. 
Moral  responsibility,  limitation  of,  ii.  329,  479. 
Moral  view  of,  ii.  267,  461,  482. 

Movement  towards  Collectivism  already  begun,  ii.  244,  383. 
National  Ownership  and  Administration,  Extension  of,  ii.  393. 
Natural  and  Social  Needs  of  Man  provided  for  by  the  form  of  Col- 
lectivism proposed,  ii.  259. 
Naturalisation,  Granting,  for  extraordinary  services  only,  ii.  325. 
Objections  to  Collectivism  discussed,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  339- 
382. 

Accumulation,  Same  Opportunity  for,  as  under  Existing  System, 
ii.  333,  334. 

Art,  Prejudicial  Influence  on,  ii.  374. 

Artificial  or  contrary  to  Nature,  ii.  371. 

Cost  of  Administration,  ii.  292. 

Home  Life,  Break-up  of,  ii.  341,  346. 

Impracticability,  ii.  228,  245,  259. 

Invention,  Removal  of  all  Stimulus,  ii.  288. 

Liberty,  Interference  with,  ii.  348. 

Nature,  Objections  imposed  by,  ii.  447. 

Over-population,  Promotion  of,  ii.  339. 

State  and   Official,  Objections  suggested  by  the  terms,  ii.  251, 
263. 

Stimulus  to  exertion  insufficient,  ii.  270,  365. 
Obstacles  to  Collectivism. 

Extravagant  hopes  which  it  has  raised,  ii.  vii. 

False  notions  of  liberty,  ii.  203,  228. 


568  INDEX 

Collectivism  (continued). 

Ignorance,  ii.  305,  307,  308,  319. 

Unwealthy  Majority,  Belief  of,  that  the  uneducated  are  as  fit  for 

public  office  as  the  educated,  ii.  308,  311. 
"Vested  Interests,  ii.  384. 
Official,  Position  of,  contrasted  with  the  position  of  an  Official  under 

the  Competitive  System,  ii.  264,  266,  292. 
Partial  Collectivism. 

Choice  of  occupation,  Conditions  regulating,  ii.  406. 
Hypothetical  development  of,  in  the  United  States,  ii.  387. 
Practicability  of,  ii.  455. 
Summary,  ii.  427. 
Pauperism  and  Crime,  Problem  of,  Intelligent  treatment  of  the  waste 
of  population,  ii.  294. 
Voluntary  and  Involuntary  Colonies,  ii.  399,  400. 
Political  View  of,  ii.  505. 
Population,  Proposed  Check  on,  ii.  339. 
Practicability  of,  ii.  452. 
Practical  Working,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  383-432. 

Summary,  ii.  427. 
Preparedness  of  different  countries  for  Collectivism,  —  Europe  and 

the  United  States,  ii.  1,  384. 
Present  Political  Conditions  rendering  a  CoUectivist  programme  es- 
sential, ii.  455. 
Private  Enterprise,  Scope  for,  ii.  392,  409. 

Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise,  ii.  412. 
Private  Property. 

Abolition  of,  in  the  sources  of  production,  ii.  242,  262. 
Division  of,  amongst  the   people,   Mistaken  notion  regarding 
Collectivism,  ii.  243. 
Prostitution,  Disappearance  of,  ii.  343. 

State  employment  a  solution  of  the  economic  problem,  ii.  400. 
Public  Office,  Danger  of  filling  by  favour  rather  than  by  merit,  ii. 

311. 
Radicalism  not  an  essential  feature  of  a  CoUectivist  programme,  ii. 

514.1 
Rational  View,  ii.  449. 
Religion,  Sanction  of,  ii.  485,  504. 
Selfishness,  Collectivism  in  connection  with,  ii.  260. 
Time  not  a  consideration  in  the  effort  to  fit  people  for  Collectivism, 

ii.  457. 
Trade  Union  Congresses,  Attitude  of,  ii.  523,  note. 
United  States,  Hypothetical  development  of  Collectivism  in,  ii.  388. 
Value  and  Exchange  Value,  ii.  330. 

Variability  of  Offspring,  Effect  of  Collectivism,  would  not  be  such  as 
to  limit  activities,  ii.  327. 


INDEX  569 

Collectivism  (continued). 

Violence  iu  introducing  Collectivism,  Danger  of,  ii.  460. 
Wealth,  No  diminution  of,  involved  by  Collectivism,  ii.  374. 
Woman  Suffrage,  Possibility  of,  ii.  325,  note. 
Work. 

Choice  of  occupation,  Determination  of,  ii.  405. 

Control  of,  ii.  263. 

Diversity  of  Work,  Rotation  of  Tasks,  ii.  320. 

Distribution  of,  ii.  298. 

Equalisation  and  rotation  of  tasks,  Rodbertus  Method,  ii.  268, 

271. 
Hours  of  Labour,  Reduction  of,  ii.  272,  293. 
Occupations  which  cannot  conveniently  be  distributed.  Arrange- 
ments for  leisure,  ii.  321. 
Piece-work  System,  ii.  269. 
Unskilled  Work,  Performance  of,  ii.  298,  301. 
Colonisation,  Over-production   stimulating,  owing  to  the   necessity  for 

creating  new  markets,  ii.  129,  149,  159,  232. 
Combination.     (See  titles  Trusts,  Trade  Combinatioks,  and  Trade 

Unions.) 
Command,  Power  of. 

Force  in  constituting  Government,  i.  224. 
Inequality  amongst  men,  ii.  185. 
Commercial  Competition.     (See  Competition.) 
Commercial  Travellers. 

Economy  which  would  be  effected  by  the  elimination  of  Competition, 

ii.  274,  546. 
Practice  of  lying,  ii.  134. 
Communes,  Development  of,  in  Prance,  ii.  62,  72. 
Communism,  Failure  of,  in  Sparta,  i.  200. 
Community  Life. 

Ants,  i.  82,  note,  110,  187;  ii.  90,  182. 
Bees,  i.  110,  187,  276. 
Government.     (See  that  title.) 
Herbivora,  i.  77. 
Men,  i.  79,  84,  108;  ii.  219. 

Men  and  Societies  of  other  living  organisms.  Difference  in  develop- 
ment, i.  246  ;  ii.  443,  446. 
Natural  Evolution  in  Community  Life,  i.  276,  284. 

Contrasted  with  Human  Evolution,  i.  285;  ii.  187. 
Power  and  Willingness  to  fulfil  the  obligations  of  Community  Life, 

Difference  between  Communities  of  Men  and  Animals,  ii.  91. 
Qualities  essential  to  success,  i.  188. 
Religion. 

Primitive  Civilisation,  Religion  a  Social  Factor  in,  i.  183. 
Value  of,  in  Social  Life,  ii.  500. 


570  INDEX 

Community  life  (continued). 

Sexual  Jealousy  and  Sexual  Relations.     (See  those  titles.) 
Social  Mind,  i.  176  ;  ii.  175. 

Temporary  Association  of  Animals  for  a  special  purpose,  i.  77,  note  ; 
ii.  179,  181. 
Compensation. 

Emerson's  Essay  on,  Confusion  of  the  Laws  of  Nature  with  those  of 

Man,  i.  277. 
Morality  of  Compensation,  ii.  475,  503, 
Vested  Interests. 

Capricious  Action  of  the  British  Parliament,  ii.  508  and  note. 
United  States  Constitution,  Clause  protecting  Vested  Interests, 
ii.  509. 
Competition,  Industrial  and  Commercial. 

Art,  Prejudicial  Influence  of  Commercialism,  ii.  375. 
Business  Ventures,  Percentage  of  Failures,  ii.  124. 
Capital,  Check  on,  through  the  alleged  freedom  of  the  Lahour  Con- 
tract, i.  291. 
Consequences  of  Commercial  Competition,  Summary,  ii.  131. 
Co-operation,  Possibility  of  substituting,  for  Competition,  ii.  440. 
Democracy  under  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  313. 
Economic  Equilibrium  maintained  by  the  fluidity  of  Capital,  ii.  132. 
Elimination  of 

Devices  for  escaping  pressure  of  Competition,  ii.  161. 
Medireval  Guilds,  ii.  105,  107. 
Political  V.  Commercial  Methods,  ii.  2. 
Trusts.     (See  that  title.) 
Foreign  Competition. 

Great  Britain  and  Foreign  Competition,  ii.  149. 
Limitations  of  Trade  Unions,  ii.  136,  149. 

"  Yellow  Peril,"  Danger  of   Chinese  Competition,  ii.   130,  136, 
note,  150. 
Morality  of  Compensation,  ii.  475,  503. 

Natural  and  Commercial  Com])etition,  Similarity  of,  ii.  124,  153. 
Over-production.     (See  that  title.) 
Prices,  Contention   that   Competition  keeps  prices  at  a  reasonable 

figure,  ii.  547,  550. 
Stimulus  to  exertion,  Evil  of  Over-Stimulation,  ii.  365,  437. 
Sweating,  ii.  145. 
Ten  Commandments  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  not  consistent 

with  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  474. 
Type,  Effect  on,  i.  150;  ii.  447,  521. 

Wages,  Competition  by  tending  to  lower  prices  tends  to  lower  wages, 
ii.  113  and  note,  135. 
Possibility  of  imj)roving  condition  of  Workingmen  under  existing 
industrial  system,  Hypothetical  Illustration,  ii.  113,  116,  125. 


INDEX  571 

Competition  (continued). 

Women,  Reduction  of  "Wages  resulting  in  Prostitution,  ii.  135. 
Waste  of  Population,  Treatment  of,  under  the  Competitive  System. 

(See  Pauperism  and  Crime.) 
Wastefulness  attending  Competitive  System,  ii.  274. 
Distribution,  ii.  278. 
Production,  ii.  284. 
Workingmen's  Ignorance  of  Political  Problems,  Forces  contributing 
to  prevent  acquisition  of  knowledge,  ii.  304,  312. 
Competition,  Predatory  Law  of  Nature. 

Commercial  Competition,  Similarity  to  Nature's  Scheme,  ii.  124,  153. 

Defiuition,  i.  89. 

Different  Species,  Competition  between,  i.  89. 

Man  and  the  Lower  Animals,  i.  96. 
Same  Species,  Competition  of  Individuals  with  one  another,  i.  89. 

Man  and  Man,   Competition  in    (a)    Same  Community,  i.  101, 

(6)  Different  Communities,  i.  102. 
Sexual  Selection,  i.  90. 
Summary,  i.  172. 
Conscience,  Habits  of  heart  or  mind  distinguishing  Social  Qualities  of 

Man  from  those  of  Animals,  ii.  496,  497. 
Conscious  Effort.     (See  Effort.) 
Consciousness  of  Kind,  ii.  180. 
Constantino,  Adoption  of  Christianity,  ii.  49,  51. 
Christians  in  the  Service  of  the  State,  i.  202. 
Favours  conferred  on  the  Christian  Church,  ii.  42. 
Construction  and  Growth.     (See  Growth  and  Construction.) 
Consumption. 

Advancement  of  the  Race,  Effect  on,  i.  97. 

Medical  Science,  Progress  in  dealing  with  Consumption  attended  by 
increase  in  Constitutional  Diseases,  i.  98. 
Conviction  and  Faith,  Difference  between,  ii.  468. 
Co-operation. 

Co-operative  Scheme  of  Society.     (See  Collectivism.) 
Movement  in  England  gradually  dispersing  the  ignorance  which  be- 
lieves the  uneducated  as  fit  for  public  office  as  the  educated,  ii.  312. 
Nature,  Principle  of  co-operation  in.     (See  Community  Life.) 
Politics,   Duty  of  co-operation  and  of  substituting  intellectual  for 
accidental  methods,  ii.  491. 
Coopers,  Trade  Union  Dictation  in  Dublin,  ii.  213. 
Cope-Osbom  and  Weismann  Schools,  Issue  between,  on  the  subject  of 

Evolution,  i.  60. 
Corporations,  Mediaeval.     (See  Guilds.) 
Corruption. 

Alliance  between  business  and  politics.  Corruption   resulting  from, 
ii.  160,  161,  234. 


572  INDEX 

Corruption  (continued). 

Elimination  of,  in  a  CoUectivist  State  by  substituting  Labour  Cheques 
for  Coin,  ii.  419. 
"Cosmos"   and  "Cosmic,"   Use   of,  with  reference   to  Evolution,   to 

include  Nature,  Art,  and  Spirit,  ii.  434,  note. 
Creator. 

Eestriction  of  Meaning  to  denote  creating  power  outside  of  Nature, 
1.35. 

Science  offering  no  explanation  of,  ii.  462. 
Crime  and  Pauperism.     (See  Paupekism  and  Crime.) 
Crusades. 

Political  Effect  of,  ii.  61,  72,  73. 

Power  of  the  Church,  Evidence  of  the  Crusades,  ii.  60. 
Currency  in  proposed  CoUectivist  State. 

Coin,  Objections  to,  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  ii.  416. 

Dividend  Coupons,  ii.  331,  334,  336,  402,  note. 

State   Orders,   Transferable  Orders   ou   public  stores  expressed  in 
Money,  ii.  396. 

Voluntary  Labour  Cheques,  ii.  332,  335,  410,  417,  419. 
Custom,  i.  265  ;  ii.  9. 

T^ALLLNGEK'S,  Dr.,  Experiments  on  the  Adaptation  of  Animal  Organ- 

isms  to  New  Environments,  i.  159. 
Darwinian  and  Lamarckian  Theories  of  Evolution,  i.  58-64. 
De  Varigny's  Experiments  on  the  Adaptation  of  Animal  Organisms  to 

New  Environments,  i.  159. 
Degeneration,  Idea  of,  included  in  Evolution,  i.  66. 
Demand. 

Effectual   Demand,  Definition  as  desire  to  possess  a  thing  coupled 

with  ability  to  purchase,  ii.  127. 
Tyranny  of  the  Market,  ii.  Ill,  230. 
Democracy  under  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  313. 
Democratic  Force  of  Private  Property  by  overthrowing  Aristocracy  of 

Birth,  ii.  96. 
Democratic  Institutions,  Definition,  i.  169,  note. 
Department  Stores,  ii.  396,  note. 
Development. 

Education  and  Heredity,  Relative  Roles,  i.  164. 
Evolution  and  Development. 

Difference  between  Evolution  and  Development,  i.  66,  67,  75. 
Spencer's  Teaching,  i.  244. 
Physiological  Meaning  of  Progress,  i.  67. 
Simi)le   and   Complex  Forms   of  Life,   Difference  in  fertility  and 

capacity,  i.  68. 
Societies  of  Men  and  Societies  of  other  living  organisms.  Difference 
in  Development,  i.  246  ;  ii.  443,  446. 


INDEX  673 

Diplomacy  a  demoralising  agent  in  international  morality,  i.  145. 
Disease. 

Bacilli  of,  Struggle  for  Life  between  Man  and  Micro-organisms,  i.  96. 

Power  of  the  idea  in  disease,  ii.  29. 
Distribution. 

Collectivism,  Economy  of,  ii.  273,  392. 

Spencer,  Encomiums  on  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  285,  note. 

Trusts,  Economies  resulting  from,  ii.  545. 
Dividend  Coupons,  ii.  331,  336. 

Exchange  Value  of   Commodities,  Determination  of,  expressed  in 
Dividend  Coupons,  ii.  402. 

Non-transferable,  and  valid  for  a  limited  period  only,  ii.  334. 

State  Order  and  Dividend  Coupon,  Difference  between,  ii.  402,  note. 
Domestic  Service,  Question  of,  in  a  CoUectivist  State,  ii.  424. 
Dublin,  Coopers  in.  Trade  Union  Dictation,  ii.  213. 

■pCONOMIC  Liberty,  ii.  227. 

Collectivism  interfering  with,  alleged,  ii.  348. 

Definition,  ii.  239. 
Economy. 

Collectivism,  Economy  of,  ii.  273-288,  292. 

Trusts,  Economies  in  Production  and  Distribution  resulting  from, 
ii.  544. 

Waste  Products,  Manufacture  of,  ii.  543. 
Education. 

Forces  moulding  Society  outside  of  Government,  i.  266. 

Free  Education  creating  an  environment  favourable  to  progressive 
types,  i.  221. 

Guilds,  System  for  securing  the  highest  class  of  work,  ii.  104. 

Habits,  Formation  by  Education,  i.  180,  181. 

Heredity  and  Education,  Kelative  roles  in  the  development  of  man 
and  animals,  i.  165. 

Inconsistencies  arising  from   failure  to  take  into  account  the  dual 
character  of  the  mind,  ii.  196. 

Knighthood,  Education  of  candidates  for,  ii.  79. 

Marriage,  Education  giving  no  special  preparation,  i.  127,  129. 

"Wealth,  Effect  on  Type,  i.  154. 
Effort,  Conscious  Effort  of  Man. 

Capacity  for  Effort. 

Devices  bolstering,  i.  358. 

Man  differentiated  from  Animals  by,  i.  357. 

Climate,  Man  by  Art  adapting  Environment  to  Function,  i.  91,  93. 

Discouragement  of  effort,  Tendency  of  Science  and  Religion,  ii.  526. 

Government,  Purposive  element  in  human  government,  i.  213. 

Natural  contrasted  with  Human  Evolution,  i.  122. 

Natural  Evolutional  Improvement,  Effort  a  possible  factor,  i.  70. 


574  INDEX 

Effort  {continued). 

Nature  distinguished  from,  i.  40,  42,  48  ;  ii.  433,  and  note,  472. 

Description  of  Nature  apart  from  the  moral  action  of  Man,  i.  44. 
Use  of  words  "  Nature  "  and  "  Natural  "  as  opposed  to  (a)  "  Art " 
and  "  Artificial,"  i.  36,  (b)  "  Spirit"  and  "  Spiritual,"  i.  39. 
Soul,  Defined  for  the  purpose  of  political  discussion  as  faculty  of  con^ 

scions  effort,  i.  250,  note. 
Virtue,  Element  of  Effort  in,  i.  355,  356  ;  ii.  495. 
Elmira  Reformatory,  A  model  of  the  way  a  Collectivist  State  would 

deal  with  criminals,  ii.  297. 
Ely,  Prof. 

Invention,  Tendency  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  to  replace  work  in- 
volving drudgery,  ii.  290. 
Over-production,  Quotations  showing  evil  of,  ii.  286. 
Emerson's  Essay  on  Compensation,  Confusion  of  the  laws  of  nature 

with  those  of  man,  i.  277. 
Employers. 

Combination  among,  ii.  214. 

Mardret,  Oppression  of,  upon  employers,  Enlightenment  of  the  work- 

ingman,  ii.  230. 
(See  also  Capitalists.) 
Employment.     Irregularity  of,  due  to  partial  over-production,  ii.  126,  132. 
Ends  and  Means,  Tendency  to  confuse  one  with  the  other,  ii.  449. 
Energy. 

Distracting  tendency  of  selfishness,  ii.  23. 
Forces  concentrating,  ii.  26. 
England. 

Municipal   government  in,  Process  of  growth  compared  with  that 

of  construction,  i.  258. 
United  States  and  England,  Impossibility  of  adapting  a  single  Col- 
lectivist prograinme  to  both  countries,  ii.  511. 
Environment. 

Adaptation  of  animal  organisms  to  new  environments,  i.  157. 

Climate,  i.  91. 

Competition.     (See  that  title.) 

Human  Artificial  Environment. 

Actual  and  Ideal  Environment,  Difference  between,  i.  335. 
Characteri.stics,  i.  147. 
Effect  of,  as  compared  with  that  of  Nature. 
Lower  Animals,  i.  332. 
Man,  i.  332;  ii.  187. 
Forces  of  which  artificial  environment  is  the  resultant,  ii.  435. 
Forces  outside  of  tlie  field  of  legislation,  ii.  8. 
Government   constituting   that   part   of    artificial    environment 
which  is  expressed  in  laws,  or  in  social  and  economic  institu- 
tions protected  by  laws,  ii.  7. 


INDEX  575 

Environment  (continued). 

Justice,  Task  of,  under  Proposed  Definition,  i.  360 ;  ii.  5. 
Primary  or  National  Enviroumeut,  i.  141. 

Qualities  ia  Man  which  have  as  direct  resultant  the  artificial  en- 
vironment created  by  each  community  for  itself,  i.  139. 
Secondary  or  International  Environment,  i.  141. 
Effect  of,  on  National  Morality,  i.  144,  145. 
Natural  and  International  Environment,  Similarity  between,  i.  143. 
Summary,  i.  171. 

(See  also  titles  Education,  Wealth,  etc.) 
Natural  and  Artificial  Environment,  Struggle  for  Life  in. 
Difference,  i.  334. 
Similarity,  i.  334. 
Nature  and  Art,  Impossibility  of   distinguishing  the  proportion  of 
each  that  goes  to  the  making  of  environment,  i.  148. 
Esterlings  in  London,  Religious  spirit  of  the  laws  governing  the  com- 
munity, ii.  101. 
Europe. 

Forces  at  work  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

Similarity  to  those  operating  in  the  Moslem  Empire,  ii.  47. 
United  States  and  Europe,  Relative  preparedness  for  Collectivism, 
ii.  1,  384. 
Evolution. 

Analysis  of  Human  Evolution,  i.  87. 

"  Cosmic  "   Evolution,  Use  of  term  to  avoid  suggestion  of  discon- 
tinuity between  Nature,  Art,  and  Spirit,  ii.  434,  7wte. 
Darwinian  and  Lamarckian  Theories. 
Darwinian  Theory,  i.  58,  59. 
Improvement,    Notion    of,   not    necessarily  involved   in    either 

Theory,  i.  66. 
Lamarckian  Theory,  i.  58,  59. 
Organic  Selection,  Theory  of,  i.  64. 
Points  in  the  two  Theories  that  are  universally  recognized  as 

true,  i.  66. 
Welsraann  and  Cope,  Osborn  Schools,  Issue  between,  i.  60. 
(See  also  titles  Natural  Selection,  Vakiability  of  Off- 
spring, etc.) 
Definition,  i.  69. 

Spencer's  Definition,  i.  67,  245. 
Development  and  Evolution. 

Difference  between,  i.  66,  67,  75, 
Spencer's  Teaching,  i.  244. 
History,  Light  thrown  by,  on  human  development,  ii.  521. 
Improvement. 

Darwinian  and  Lamarckian  Theories  not  necessarily  involving 
notion  of  improvement,  i.  66. 


576  INDEX 

Evolution  (continued). 

Effort  a  possible  Factor,  i.  70. 

Improvemeut  by  Selection,  Essential  Conditions,  i.  70. 
Man's  interference  with  Nature,  Effect  on  Type,  i.  287,  296. 
Morality,  Scientific  explanation  of,  as  a  blind  and  mechanical  pro- 
cess of  Evolution,  ii.  461. 
Natural  and  Human  Evolution. 

Contrasts  between  Natural  Social  Evolution  and  Human  Social 

Evolution,  i.  285. 
Effort  constituting  the  essential  Difference,  i.  122. 
Nature,  Law  of  Nature   and  Evolution,  Summary   of   Conclusions 

arrived  at,  and  connection  between  the  terms,  i.  70. 
Process  of  Evolution,  Failure  of  attempts  to  generalise  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  process,  i.  68. 
Records  of  the  Story. 
Human  Foetus,  i.  57. 
Rocks,  Testimony  of,  i.  56. 
Social  Evolution  forming  part  of  evolution  in  general,  Heresy  aris- 
ing from  Spencer's  Analogy  between   Society  and  an  Organism, 
i.  244. 
Virtue,  Evolution  of,  i.  344  ;  ii.  238. 

Working  of  the  Law  of  Evolution  in  a  state  of  nature,  and  the  work- 
ing of  it  subject  to  the  influence  of  man,  i.  73. 
(For  discussion  of  particular  subjects,  e.  g.,  Time,  Predatory  System, 
etc.,  see  these  headings.) 
Example,  Effect  on  Type,  Character  acquired   by  constant   regard  for 

"Wealth,  i.  152,  155. 
Exchange  Value,  ii.  330. 

Commodities,  Determination  of  Exchange  Value  expressed  in  Divi- 
dend Coupons,  ii.  402. 
Expediency. 

Expediency  equivalent  to  Justice  in  the  making  of  laws,  J.  S.  Mill's 

contention,  i.  317. 
Substituting  the  word  "  Wisdom  "  for  "  expediency  "  in  reference  to 
legislation,  i.  318. 

■pABIAN  Theory  of  Collectivism,  ii.  386. 

Failures,  Percentage  of,  in  new  business  ventures,  ii.  124. 
Faith,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  pp.  466-475. 

Age  of  Faith,  Preponderating  role  of  the  religious  idea  in  the  Middle 

Ages,  ii.  18,  29,  46,  54. 
Conditions  resulting  from  the  attitude  of  the  Anglican  Church,  ii. 

471,  note. 
Conviction  and  Faith,  Difference  between,  ii.  468. 
Definition,  ii.  466. 

Political  Science,  Definition  of  Faith  in,  ii.  471. 
Religious  Faith,  ii.  499. 


INDEX  577 

Faith  {continued). 

Influence   of  faith  ceasing  to  be  paramount,  Struggle  of  the  towns 

for  self-government  in  the  11th  and  succeeding  centuries,  ii.  64. 
Submission,  Element  of,  Authority  of  the  Church  succeeded  by  that 

of  the  Bible,  ii.  466. 
Summary,  ii.  502. 

Value  of,  in  political  science,  ii.  469. 
Family  and  the  Stake,  Differences  between,  i.  225. 
Family  ReUgions,  i.  183,  186. 

Farm  Colonies  for  Paupers  and  Criminals,  Dutch  method,  ii.  296,  399. 
Flint,  Prof.,  on  disappearance  of  foreign  trade  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii. 

337. 
Foetus,  Human,  Stages  of,  as  evidence  that  man  has  developed  in  com- 
pliance with  evolutional  law,  i.  57. 
Food  Products,  Treatment  of  Waste,  ii.  154. 
Foreign  Competition.     (See  Competition.) 
Foreign  Missions,  Attitude  of  Morality,  i.  320,  322. 
Foreign  Trade. 

Collectivist  Community,  ii.  337. 

Over-production  stimulating  search  for  foreign  markets,  ii.  129,  131, 
149,  159,  231. 
Industrial  Commission  Report,  ii.  542. 
Fornication,  alternative  to  extinction  of  the  race,  i.  131. 
France. 

Amiens,  Struggle  for  self-government,  ii.  62,  63. 

Commercial  Competition,  Absence  of  enterprise  necessary  to  fight 

trusts,  ii.  557. 
Communes,  Development  of,  ii.  62,  72. 
Employers'  and  Employees'  Associations,  ii.  553. 
Guilds,  Tyranny  of,  Louis  XVI.  proclaiming  the  "  inalienable  right  to 

work,"  ii.  105. 
Municipal  Government,  Stages  of  growth  and  of  construction,  i.  262. 
Franchise,  Form  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  325. 
Free  Trade,  and  Quesnay's  teaching  on  Natural  Rights,  i.  27. 
Freedom.     (See  Liberty.) 
Freeman,  Prof.,  on  Chivalry,  ii.  76. 


r^ARBAGE,  ii.  154,  155,  note. 

Gas  Supply,  Tramways,  etc.,  Municipalisation  of  Arguments  for 
and  against,  i.  1. 
Collectivism,  Hypothetical  development  of,  in  the  United  States,  ii. 
390. 
Giddings,  Prof. 

Consciousness  of  kind,  ii.  180. 
Development  of  defined  sexual  relations,  i.  111. 

37 


578  INDEX 

God,  or  Creating  Power  outside  of  Nature,  i.  34,  48. 

"Good  Government  Clubs,"  Organisation  of,  in  New  York,  i.  vi;   ii. 

164. 
Government. 

Aim  of  Government,  i.  340,  341 ;  ii.  446. 

Science  and  religion,  Difference  of  opinion,  ii.  518. 
Scientific  World,  Difference  of  opinion  between  different  groups 
ii.  519. 
Animal  and  Insect  Communities,  Unwritten  Code,  i.  211. 
Association,  Law  of,  i.  264. 

Best-governed  Nation  is  that  which  is  governed  least,  Doctrine  of,  i. 
3;  ii.  11,  12,  519. 
Rousseau  and  Quesnay,  Similarity  in  teaching,  i.  26. 
"  Coercive  Philanthropy,"  Spencer's  Denunciation,  i.  242. 
Collectivism.     (See  that  title.) 
Command,  Power  of,  i.  224. 

Inequality  amongst  men,  ii.  185. 
Community  life,  a  step  in  self-restraint  rendering  government  possi- 
ble, i.  225. 
Conscious  and  unconscious  forces  in  operation,  ii.  67,  92. 
Corruption  resulting  from  the  alliance  between  business  and  politics, 
Measures  for  escaping  the  pressure  of  competition,  ii.  160,   161, 
234. 
Definition,  ii.  446. 

Democracy  under  the  competitive  system,  ii.  313. 
Description,  Provisional  Descriptions  of  what  government  is,  i.  235. 
Educating  Influences  which  escape  control,  i.  266. 
Family  and  the  State,  Difference  between,  i.  225. 
Forms  of  Government,  Classification. 
Aristotle,  i.  253,  note. 
Seeley,  Sir  J.  R.,  i.  253. 
Greece  and  Rome,  Development  of  civilisation,  i.  191. 
Habit,  Force  of,  perpetuating  unwritten  code  of  government  in  savage 

races  and  animal  communities,  i.  212. 
Hypocrisy  of,  by  profession  of  Christian  faith,  ii.  51. 
Individual  Element  in,   Each  Step   in  the  development  of  govern- 
ment associated  with  the  name  of  some  one  man,  i.  214,  222. 
Individualism.     (See  that  title.) 

Justice  and  Government,  Government  constituting  that  part  of  arti- 
ficial environment  which  is  expressed  in  laws,  or  in  social  and  eco- 
nomic institutions  protected  by  laws,  ii.  7. 
Legislation  under  an  absolute  monarchy  and  under  a  popular  govern- 
ment. Difference  in  conditions,  ii.  507. 
Limitations,  i.  271,  272,  338,  341,  342. 
Monogamy,  A  first  step  in  self-restraint,  i.  213. 
Moral  View  of,  ii.  461. 
Summary,  ii.  502. 


INDEX  579 

Government  (continued). 

Municipal  Governmeut.     (See  that  title.) 
Object  of  the  present  work  and  method  of  procedure,  i.  8. 
Points  of  view  from  which  government  may  be  studied,  i.  53  ;  ii.  9,  527. 
Standpoints  from  which  political  students  approach  the  subject, 
i.  7. 
Primitive  human  government,  Growth  of.  Summary  of  conclusions, 

i.  233. 
Public  Office,  Tendency  to  fill  by  favour  rather  than  by  merit,  ii.  3 1 0. 
Purposive  Element  in  Human  Government,  i.  213. 
Religion  an  instrument  in  perpetuating  government  for  the  benefit  of 

the  governing  class,  i.  214. 
Eespect  for  government,  Value  of  the  standard  of  reverence  set  by 

religion,  ii.  501. 
Scope  of  Government,  Arguments  for  and  against  increasing,  i.  2 ;  ii.  2. 
Summary,  ii.  516. 
Trusts,  Administration  by  the  State. 

Hypothetical  development  of  collectivism  in  the  United  States, 

ii.  394. 
Impossibility  of,  under  existing  conditions,  ii.  559. 
Tyranny  of  different  ages.  General  tendency  to  substitute  for  com- 
pulsory tyranny  one  which  is  consented  to,  ii.  67,  206. 
Workingmen,  Dangerous  notion  that  governmeut  requires  no  special 
experience  or  qualifications,  ii.  308,  311. 
Greece  and  Rome,  Development  of  Civilisation,  i.  191. 
Defensor  urbls,  Institution  of  the  office  in  Rome,  i.  203. 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  ii.  16. 

Individualism  characteristic  of  Roman  and  Greek  civilisation,  ii.  94. 
Individuals  in  Political  Reforms,  i.  191,  note,  216. 
Internal  Policy  or  the  struggle  for  Wealth  and  Political  power,  i.  223, 

228. 
Law. 

.  Exclusiveness  and  Artificialness  of  Roman  Law,  i.  22. 
Mistaken  Theory  of  Natural  Law,  i.  20,  21. 
"Live  according  to  Nature,"  Teaching  of  Roman  philosophers,  ii.  17. 
Oppression  the  predominating  note  of  the  whole  epoch,  i.   193,  197, 

199. 
Religion. 

Cliristian  Church  and  the  Roman  Empire,  Alliance  between,  i. 

201,  204,  207,  232. 
Christian   Morality  compared  to  the   morality  of  Greece  and 

Rome,  i.  204. 
Family  religion  exercising  an  anti-social  tendency,  i.  183. 
Law  and  Religion,  Connection  between,  i.  21. 
Reforms  creating  a  wider  religion  within  which  to  include  the 
domestic  religions,!.  192,  195,  197. 


580  INDEX 

Greece  and  Rome  (continued). 

Similarity  in  the  development  of  Roman  and  Athenian  Civilisation, 

i.  191,  199. 
Social  Classification,  Substituting  a  Wealth  Basis  for  that  of  birth 

and  religion,  i.  194,  197;  ii.  97. 
Summary,  i.  234. 
Greek  Notion  of  Natvire,  i.  43. 
Green-house,  Society  compared  to,  i.  250. 
Grotius,  Definition  of  Justice,  i.  281. 
Growth  and  Construction,  i.  257. 

Comparison  between  the  process  of  growth  and  that  of  construction, 

Municipal  government  in  England  and  France,  i.  258. 
Organic  and  Inorganic  States,  Sir  J.  R.   Seeley's  Classification,  i. 

254. 
Societies  of  Men  and  societies  of  other  living  organisms.  Difference  in 

Development,  i.  246  ;  ii.  68,  443,  446. 
Society,  Growth  and  construction  in.     (See  Society.) 
Summary,  i.  266. 
Guilds,  Mediaeval,  ii.  210. 

Birmingham  Alliances  reproducing  essential  features  of  the  guild,  ii. 

151. 
Competition,  Prevention  of.  Abuse  of  power  through  the  process  of 

regulation,  ii.  105,  107. 
Education  and  surveillance  of  the  artisan,  ii.  104. 
"  Inalienable  right  to  work,"  Declaration  of  Louis  XVI.  against  the 

tyranny  of  the  Guilds,  ii.  105. 
Journeymen  Guilds,  ii.  104,  note. 
Laissez  /aire,  Doctrine  of,  Reaction  towards  individualism  from  the 

tyranny  of  the  guild,  i.  26,  27  ;  ii.  110. 
Municipal  Liberties,  Original  protectors  of,  i.  260. 
Organisation  and  functions  of  the  original  guilds,  ii.  102. 
Guizot  on  the  Christian  Church,  ii.  46. 

TTABIT. 

■^  Description,  i.  177. 

Government,  Unwritten  Code  perpetuated  in  savage  races  and  animal 

communities  by  force  of  habit,  i.  212. 
Heredity  and  Education,  Influence  in  formation  of  habits,  i.    180, 

181. 
Man  and  Animals,  Contrast  in  Conduct,  i.  347 ;  ii.  473. 
Political  Institutions,  Force   of  Habit  in  framing  early  institutions, 

i.  180. 
Religion,  Influence  of  habit,  i.  181,  183. 

Sentiment  of  Justice,  Habit  a  contributing  factor,  i.  290,  291. 
Unconscious  socialising  force,  i.  248 ;  ii.  34,  47. 
Hanseatic  League,  ii.  74. 


INDEX  581 


Happiness. 

Difficulties  standing  in  the  way  of  favourable  environment,  i.  349. 
Perfect  happiness  beyond  the  control  of  political  institutions,  i.  315, 

338,  341. 
Selfishness  the  great  obstacle  to  human  happiness,  ii.  527. 
Herbivora  and  Carnivora.     (See  Carnivoea  and  Herbivora.) 
Heredity. 

Acquired  Traits,  Lamarckian  Theory,  i.  58. 

Issue  between  Darwinian  and  Lamarckian  Schools,  i.  60. 
Education  and  Heredity,  Relative  roles  in  the  development  of  Man 

and  Animals,  i.  165. 
Habits,  Formation  of,  i.  180,  181. 
Wealth,  Effect  on  Type,  i.  130,  150. 
History. 

Government,  Historical  view  of,  ii.  528. 
Human  development,  Light  thrown  on,  ii.  521. 
Individualism  in,  ii.  16. 
Holland,  Pauper  Colonies  in,  ii.  296,  399. 
Home  Life,  Break-up  of,  Objection  to   Collectivism  discussed,  ii.  341, 

346. 
Honour,  Code  of,  ii.  85. 
Horde  System,  ii.  219. 
Horse,  Evolution  of,  i.  57. 

Hours  of  Labour,  Reduction  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  272,  293. 
Human  Artificial  Environment.     (See  Environment.) 
Human  Laws  and  laws  of  Nature,  Difference  between,  i.  16. 
Human  Selection  distinguished  from  Natural  Selection.     (See  Natural 

Selection.) 
Humanity,  Claims  of.  Limitation  of  moral  responsibility,  ii.  329,  479. 
Huxley,  Prof 

Destructiveness  of  Prof.  Huxley's  philosophical  work,  i.  15. 

Natural   and   political    inequalities   too   intimately   associated   to   be 

studied  apart.  Theory  suggested,  i.  311. 
Predatory  System,  i.  45. 
Hypnotism  proving  the  duality  of  the  mind,  ii.  193. 
Hypocrisy,  a  product  of  Compromise  between  Christianity  and  Paganism, 

ii.  52. 
Hysteria,  Strength  of  the  disorder  chiefly  derived  from  the  domination  of 
a  fixed  idea,  ii.  30. 

TDEA,  Power  of. 

Disease,  ii.  29. 

Politics,  ii.  32. 

Religion,  ii.  23. 
Ideal  or  Moral  Law  regarded  as  synonymous  with  Natural  Law.     (See 
Natural  Law.) 


582  INDEX 

Ideals  to  which  the  world  really  aspires  in  spite  of  the  strangulation  by 

Commercialism,  ii.  458. 
Ignorance,  the  Enemy  of  Collectivism  and  eliminated  by  it,  ii.  305,  319. 
Immigration,  Prohibition  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  324. 
Immorality,  Diminution  in,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  345. 
Imperial  Expansion  necessitated   by  over-production,   ii.   129,  131,   149, 

159,  231. 
"Inalienable  right  to  work,"  Declaration   by  Louis  XVI.  against  the 

tyranny  of  the  guilds,  ii.  105. 
Income  from  investment.  Injustice  of  existing  system,  ii.  116,  125,  478. 
Individualism,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  i.,  pp.  1-249. 
Arab  Individualism,  ii.  21. 
Best-governed  nation  is  that  which  is  governed  least,  Doctrine  of,  i. 

3,  26;  ii.  11,  12. 
Collectivism  and  Individualism. 

Alternative  Adoption  of,  ii.  4,  14. 
Rival  economic  and  political  theories,  ii.  3,  14. 
Definition,  ii.  4. 
Description,  i.  360;  ii.  10. 
History,  Individualism  in,  ii.  16. 
Idea  of  individualist  government,  Development  of,  ii.  60. 

Forces  at  work,  ii.  65. 
Moral  considerations.  Individualism  founded  upon,  ii.  12. 
Private  Property.     (See  Property.) 

Roman  and  Greek  civilisation  characterised  by  individualism,  ii.  94. 
Individualist   Enterprise,    Scope   for,  in   a   Collectivist   Community,   ii. 
392,  409. 
Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise,  ii.  412. 
Industrial  Commission,  Report. 

Economic  Advantages  of  Trusts,  ii.  535. 

Foreign  Markets,  Over-production  stimulating  search  for,  ii.  542. 
Waste  Products,  Economy  resulting  from  manufacture  of,  ii.  543. 
Industrial  Results  of  Private  Property,  ii.  124. 
Industrialism. 

Competition.     (See  that  title.) 

Conclusion   that   existing   institutions  not  only  work  injustice,  but 

must  do  so,  ii.  173. 
Militarism  and  Industrialism. 
Comparison  between,  ii.  157. 
Militarism  yielding  to  Industrialism,  Influence  of  the  Crusades, 

ii.  73,  100. 
Qualities  distinguishing  the  military  spirit  from  the  Commercial 
ii.  75. 
Variation,  Industrial  System  as  a  method  of  securing,  i.  221. 
Inequalities  amongst  Men. 

Artificial  Inequalities,  i.  312,  314,  338  ;  ii.  520. 


INDEX  583 

Inequalities  amongst  Men  (continued). 

Community  life,  Inequality  in  power  and  willingness  to  fulfil  obliga- 
tions of,  ii.  91. 
Government. 

Aim  of,  to  diminish  inequalities,  i.  340,  341. 

Limitations  of  Government,  i.  338,  341,  342  ;  ii.  261. 
Justice,  Task  of,  under  proposed  definition,  i.  288,  295  ;  ii.  5. 
Men  are  not  "  created  equal,"  i.  306. 
Natural  Inequalities,  i.  307,  315,  337,  338. 
Natural   and   political    inequalities  too   intimately  associated   to   be 

studied  apart.  Theory  suggested  by  Prof.  Huxley,  i.  311. 
Social  Mind,  Two  kinds  of,  one  of  which  enslaves  the  other,  ii.  185. 
"  InequaUty  of  Benefits,"  Spencer  Theory,  i.  281 ;  ii.  5,  252,  253. 
Infant's  Brain,  Smoothness  of,  i.  165. 
Inorganic  and  Organic  States,  Sir  J.  R.  Seeley's  classification  of  Forms 

of  Government,  i.  253. 
Instinct,  Constancy  of  an  animal's  conduct  under  the  same  conditions, 

i.  346. 
Insurance,  Economy  that  would  be  effected  by  elimination  of,  in  a  Col- 

lectivist  State,  ii.  279. 
Intelligence. 

Animal  Intelligence,  Dr.  Thorndike's  Experiments,  i.  166. 
Intelligence  in  the  Service  of   Selfishness  an  obstacle  to  the  attain- 
ment of  justice,  i.  302. 
Morality  and  Intelligence,  Conflict  between,  ii.  498. 
Predatory  System,  Application  of  intelligence  securing  the  best  food 

to  both  predator  and  prey,  ii.  66. 
Religion  and  Intelligence,  Determining  respective  roles  of,  in  evolu- 
tion and  development,  i.  85. 
International  or  Secondary  Environment,  i.  141. 
National  Morality,  Effect  on,  i.  144,  145. 

Natural  and  International  Environment,  Similarity  between,  i.  143. 
International  Relations,  Effect  of  Trusts,  Danger  of  eliminating  inter- 
national competition,  ii.  555. 
Invention. 

Capitalists'  interest  in  suppressing  inventions,  ii.  288. 
Collectivism. 

Objection  that  all  stimulus  to  invention  would  be  removed,  ii.  288. 
Tendency  of  invention  to  replace  work  involving  drudgery,  by 
machinery,  ii.  290,  426. 
Ireland,  Recent  legislation  on,  Embarrassment  occasioned  to  statesmen 
by  an  aggressive  minority  dragging  forward  measures  for  which  the 
community  is  not  ripe,  ii.  506. 
Italy. 

City  Republics,  Rise  of,  ii.  73,  100. 

Major  and  Minor  Arts,  Combination  of  Workingmen,  ii.  100. 


584  INDEX 

JENXS'S,  Prof.,  Tables  showing  prices  of  Articles  which  had  given  rise 
to  Trusts,  ii.  548. 
Joiimeymen  Guilds,  ii.  104,  note. 
Justice. 

Absolute  Justice,  Alternative  doctrine  of,  i.  282. 
Act  of  Justice. 

Act  of  Justice  distinguished  from  the  Sentiment  of  it,  i.  281, 

288,  292. 
Definition,  i.  350. 
Adam  Smith,  on  the  Exercise  of  Justice,  i.  317. 
Competitive  System,  Impossibility  of  Justice,  ii.  481. 
Definitions. 

Existing  Definitions,  i.  279,  282,  317. 

Lack  of  Definition  by  early  Political  Philosophers,  i.  6. 

Proposed  Definition,  i.  288,  295,  360. 

Criticism  of  proposed  definition,  i.  316  ;  ii.  5. 
Limits  put  to  exorbitant  claims  of  morality,  i.  319. 
Political  Debate,  Discursiveness  restricted,  i.  324. 
Spencerian  description  of  justice  contrasted  with  proposed 
definition,  ii.  5. 
Different  Senses  in  which  the  word  "  justice"  is  used,  i.  282,  316. 
Evolution  of,  i.  283. 
Expediency,  J.  S.  Mill's  Contention   that  justice  is  equivalent  to 

expediency  in  the  making  of  laws,  i.  317. 
Government   constituting   that   part   of    the   artificial  environment 
created  by  man,  which  is  expressed  in  laws,  or  in.  social  and  econo- 
mic institutions  protected  by  laws,  ii.  7. 
Natural  Justice,  so-called,  i.  275. 
Obstacles  to  the  attainment  of  Justice,  i.  300. 
Inequalities  amongst  Men.     (See  that  title.) 
Intelligence  in  the  service  of  selfishness  masquerading  as  hu- 
manity, i.  302. 
Natural  Obstacles,  i.  305,  330 ;  ii.  474. 
Sentiment  of  Justice. 

Act  of  Justice  distinguished  from  the  Sentiment  of  it,  i.  281, 

288,  292. 
Definition,  i.  289. 

Factors  contributing  to  form  our  Sentiment  of  Justice,  i.  291. 
Summary,  i.  326 ;  ii.  439. 
Virtue,  Justice  regarded  as  a  Virtue,  i.  342,  350,  359. 

Problems  of  conduct  complicating  the  virtue  of  justice,  i.  352. 
Juatin  Martsrr's  description  of  Christianity,  ii.  39. 

TT"  IDD'S,  Mr.,  Views  on  the  r6le  of  religion  in  social  evolution,  i.  83,  note. 
Knighthood. 

Ceremony  for  the  presenting  of  new  knights,  ii.  80. 
Chaucer's  description  of  a  knight,  ii.  78. 


INDEX  585 

Knighthood  {continued). 

Education  of  candidates  for,  ii.  79. 

Lauucelot,  Sir  Ector's  eulogy  of,  ii.  78. 

Milton  on,  ii.  79. 
Koran,  verses  from,  ii.  20. 

* 

T   ABOUR. 

CoUectivist  State,  Work  in.     (See  Collectivism.) 

Condition  of  Workingmen,  Possibility  of  improving,  under  existing 
industrial  S3'stem,  Hypothetical  illustration,  ii.  113,  116,  125. 

Government,  Dangerous  notion  among  workingmen  that  no  special 
qualification  or  experience  is  required,  ii.  308,  311. 

Ignorance  of  political  problems,  Forces  contributing  to  prevent  work- 
ingmen acquiring  knowledge,  ii.  304,  312. 

"  Inalienable   right  to  work,"  Declaration   by  Louis  XVI.  against 
the  tyranny  of  the  guilds,  ii.  105. 

Liberty  of  Contract,  ii.  209,  214. 

Market,   Oppression    of,  upon    Employers,   Enlightenment   of    the 
workingman,  ii.  230. 

Power  of  popular  force  if  not  disunited  by  a  dividing  financial  doc- 
trine, ii.  523. 

Kegulation   of.     (See    titles    Guilds,   Trade   Combinations,   and 
Trade  Unions.) 

Speeding  up  machinery,  Device  to  get  more  work  out  of  employees 
without  raising  wages,  ii.  437. 

Strikes,  Change  in  Character,  i.  144. 

Sweating  System,  ii.  145,  486. 

"Villages"  free  from  labour  regulation,  Kise  of,  ii.  109. 
Labour  Cheques,  Voluntary,  ii.  332. 

Advantage  of,  owing  to  limited  possibility  of  accumulation,  ii.  417. 

Elimination  of  Corruption  by  substituting  Labour  Cheques  for  Coin, 
ii.  419. 

Private  Enterprise,  Use  of  Labour  Cheques  as  a  medium  of  exchange, 
ii.  410. 

Transferable,  ii.  335. 
Labour  Commission,  Report  on  the  Change  in  Character  of  Strikes,  ii. 

144. 
Laissez  faire,  Doctrine  of. 

Best-governed  nation  is  that  which  is  governed  least,  i.  3,  26;  ii.  11, 
12,  519. 

Liberty  of  Contract,  ii.  209,  214. 

Quesnay's  Teaching,  i.  26. 

Reaction  towards  individualism  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Corporation, 
i.  26,  27;  ii.  110. 

Spencer's  Analogy  between  Society  and  an  organism,  Pernicious  in- 
fluence of,  i.  243. 

Virtue  in  Connection  with,  i.  356, 


586  INDEX 

Lamarckian  and  Darwinian  Theories  of  Evolution,  i.  58-64. 

Land,  Tenure  of,  under  a  CoUectivist  form  of  GoYerument,  ii.  243,  420. 

Launcelot,  Sir  Ector's  Eulogy  of,  ii.  78. 

Law. 

Greece  and  Rome,  Development  of  Civilisation,  i.  20-22. 
Human  laws  and  laws  of  Nature,  Difference  between,  i.  16. 
Montesquieu's  Definition,  i.  17. 
Natural  Law.     (See  that  title.) 

Religion  and  Law,  Connection  between,  in  Greece  and  Rome,  i.  21. 
Lawyers,  Disappearance  of,  in  a  CoUectivist  State,  ii.  282. 
liegislation,  under  an  absolute  Monarchy  and  under  a  popular  Govern- 
ment, Difference  in  conditions,  ii.  507. 
Leisure. 

Collectivism,  Leisure  secured  by,  ii.  30.3. 

Competitive  Sy.stem,  Workingmen  deprived  of  leisure  necessary  for 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  ii.  304,  312. 
Lex  portionis.     (See  Predatory  System.) 

Liberal  and  Conservative  Parties  in  England,  Homology  between  change 
in  the  Political  organism  and  change  adopted  in  the  Dallinger  Ex- 
periments, i.  162. 
Liberty,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  i.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  203-239. 
Anal3'sis  of,  ii.  217. 

Collectivism  interfering  with,  alleged,  ii.  351. 
Economic  Liberty,  ii.  348. 

Individualist  views,  "A  Plea  for  Liberty,"  ii.  352,  355. 
Personal  Liberty,  ii.  352. 
Political  Liberty,  ii.  351. 
Divergent  Notions,  ii.  208. 
Economic  Liberty,  ii.  227,  348.  « 

Definition,  ii.  239. 
False  Notions,  ii.  203,  205. 
Geographical  Theory,  ii.  208. 
Personal  Liberty,  Definition,  ii.  239. 
Political  Liberty. 

Collectivism  interfering  with,  alleged,  ii.  351. 
Definition,  ii.  227,  239. 
United  States,  Spencer  on,  ii.  351. 
Value  of,  ii.  233. 
Property,  Right  and  Duty,  ii.  223. 

Seeley,  Sir  J.  R.,  on  various  conceptions  of  liberty,  ii.  204. 
Social  and  Industrial  conditions  interfering  with,  ii.  207,  209,  364. 
Steps  by  which  man   has  abandoned   the  license  of  nature  for  the 
security  of  law,  ii.  218. 
Rights  and  Duties  arising  from  the  sacrifice  of  license,  ii.  224. 
Summary,  ii.  237. 

Summary  and  conclusions  arrived  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  Col- 
lectivism, ii.  356. 


INDEX  587 

Liberty  {coiitinued). 

Terms  used  in  discussing  liberty,  ii.  224, 

Three  kinds  of,  ii.  227,  239,  356.j 
Liberty  of  Contract,  ii.  209,  214. 

Folly  of.  Trusts  and  Birmingham  alliance  demonstrating,  ii.  161. 
License,  ii.  224. 
Local  Government,  Struggles  of  the  people  in  the  11th  and  succeeding 

centuries,  ii.  61,  72,  100. 
Louis  XVI.  proclaiming  the  "inalienable  right  to  work,"  ii.  105. 
Love. 

Chivalry  substituting  love  of  woman  for  love  of  God,  ii.  81. 

Code  of  love,  ii.  82. 

Concentrating  energy.  Force  of  love,  ii.  26. 

Round  Table,  Law  of,  ii.  79. 
Lycurgus,  Political  work  of,  i.  200. 
Lying,  practice  of,  in  trade,  ii.  134. 

TV/TATNE'S,   Sir   H.,  Theory  of  the   patriarchal  origin   of  civilisation, 
"'■  -^     i.  186,  187. 

Major  and  Minor  Arts,  Combination  of  workingraen  in  Italy,  ii.  100. 
Malory,  Sir  T.,  Sir  Ector's  eulogy  of  Launcelot,  ii.  78. 
Man  as  a  Factor  in  the  domain  of  Nature,  i.  36. 
Market,  The  Tyranny  of  Private  Property,  ii.  111. 
"  Getting  tiie  Market." 

Collectivism,  Economy  of,  ii.  273-288,  292. 
Trusts,  Economy  resulting  from,  ii.  546. 
Oppression  of  the  Market   upon  employers,  Enlightenment   of  the 
workingman,  ii.  230. 
Marriage. 

Collectivism,  Some  partisans  of,  hostile  to  the  institution  of  marriage, 

ii.  .341. 
Education  giving  no  special  preparation,  i.  127,  129. 
Equalisation  of  Men,  Institution  of  Marriage  an  Obstacle,  i.  313. 
Human  Artificial  Environment. 

Adaptation  of  function  to  environment.  Process  illustrated  in  the 

case  of  marriage,  i.  105,  111. 
Operation  of,  in  modifying  the  character  of  selection  and  pro- 
ducing an  artificial  type,  i.  104. 
Monogamy.     (See  that  title.) 
Motives  leading  to  Marriage,  i.  128. 
Natural  Law,  Ulpiau's  Definition,  i.  20. 
Summary,  i.  135. 

Wealth,  Operation  of,  on  marriage  and  on  type  produced,  i.  130,  150. 
Marsh's,  Prof.,  discoveries  revealing  the  development  of  the  horse,  i.  57. 
Marx,  Theory  of  Collectivism,  ii.  386. 
Means  and  Ends,  Tendency  to  confuse  one  with  the  other,  ii.  449. 


588  INDEX 

Mecca,  Religion  an  anti-social  force  prior  to  the  preaching  of  Mohammed, 

ii.  21. 
Medical  Practitioner  and  the  Political  Student,  Similarity  of  Tasks,  i.  297. 
Mental  Science  and  the  Modern  form  of  miracle,  ii.  29,  31. 
Merchants,  Foreign,  Harassing  restrictions  during  the  Middle  Ages,  ii.  101. 
Metoecaean  Sacrifice,  Institution  of,  i.  192. 
Metronymic  Tribes,  i.  186  ;  ii.  219. 
Middle  Ages. 

Forces  at   work   in   Europe,   Similarity   to   those  operating  in   the 
Moslem  Empire,  ii.  47. 

Preponderating  role  of  the  religious  idea,  ii.  19,  29,  46,  55,  101. 
Militarism,  i.  80. 

Industrialism  and  Militarism. 
Comparison  between,  ii.  157. 
Militarism  yielding  to  Industrialism,  Influence  of  the  Crusades, 

ii.  73,  100. 
Qualities  distinguishing  the  military  spirit  from  the  commercial, 
ii.  75. 

Religion  a  Social  Factor,  i.  183. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  on  Justice,  i.  317. 
Milton  on  Knighthood,  ii.  79. 
Miracle,  Modern  form  of,  ii.  29. 
Missions,  Foreign,  Attitude  of  Morality,  i.  320,  322. 
Mohammedanism. 

Cliristiauity  and  Mohammedanism  compared,  ii.  20,  38,  48. 

Concentrating  force  of  a  single  idea,  ii.  28. 

Destruction  of  the  Moslem  Empire  by  the   corrupting  influence  of 
prosperity,  ii.  34,  37. 

Forces  at  work  in  creating  the  Moslem  Empire,  ii.  34. 

Loftiness  of  the  Mohammedan  idea,  ii.  35. 

Modern  exponent  of,  ii.  29. 

Personality  of  Mohammed  contributing  to  his  success,  ii.  22. 
Monogamy. 

Peculiar  to  man,  i.  110,  213. 

Price  paid  for  monogamy,  Prostitution,  i.  131. 

Self-restraint  involved,  i.  127. 

Summary,  i.  134. 
Monogamy  among  the  solitary  carnivora,  i.  110. 
Monopolies,  Device  for  escaping  the  pressure  of  competition,  ii.  161. 
Montesquieu's  definition  of  Law,  i.  17. 

Moral  Forces  contributing  factors  in  forming  sentiment  of  justice,  i.  291. 
Moral  or  Ideal  Law  regarded  as  synonymous  with  Natural  Law.     (See 

NATUitAL  Law,  Idkal.) 
Moral  Qualities  in  Man,  Development  of. 

Evolution  of  virtue,  i.  344  ;  ii.  238. 

Spencer  Theory  of  perfectibility  of  the  race,  i.  118. 

Variability,  apparent  gap  in,  i.  115. 


INDEX  589 

Moral  Responsibility,  Limitation  of,  ii.  479. 

Collectivist  principles,  ii.  329. 
Morality. 

Characteristics,  ii.  494. 

Chivalry,  Idea  of,  ii.  75. 

Claims  of,  Limit  set  to  exorbitant  claims  by  the  definition  of  Justice 

proposed,  i.  319,  320,  323. 
Class  morality,  Code  of  Honour,  ii.  85. 
Collectivism  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  ii.  267,  461,  482. 
Compensation,  Morality  of,  ii.  475,  503. 
Individual  and  the  State,  Code  of  morals  differing  from  that  which 

obtains  between  individuals,  ii.  197. 
Intelligence  and  Morality. 
Conflict  between,  ii.  498. 

Intelligence  making  use  of  Morality  to  attain  selfish  ends,  i.  302. 
International  or  Secondary  Environment,  Effect  on  National  Morality, 

i.  144,  145. 
Nature,  Beauty  of,  lies  chiefly  in  man's  moral  apprehension  of  it,  i.  47. 
Opposing   Selfishnesses  which  abstain  from  sin  except   within  safe 

limits,  Kind  of  morality  which  keeps  civilisation  together,  ii.  25. 
Prostitution,  Attitude  of  Morality,  i.  320. 
Keligion  and  Morality,  ii.  494. 

Comparison  of,  ii.  498. 
Scientific  explanation  of  morality  as  a  blind  and  mechanical  process 

of  evolution,  ii.  461. 
Teaching  Morality,  Neglect  of,  i.  127,  129. 
Morphological  View  of  Government,  ii.  9,  528. 
Municipal  Government. 
Collectivism. 

Europe  and  the  L^nited   States,  Kelative  preparedness  for  col- 
lectivism, ii.  1,  384. 
Hypothetical  development  of,  in  the  United  States,  ii.  389. 
Corruption  resulting  from  the  alliance  between  business  and  politics, 

ii.  162,  166. 
Gas  Supply,  Tramways,  Telephone,  etc..  Arguments  for  and  against 

municipalisation,  i.  1. 
Growth,  Principle  of,  compared  with  the  principle  of  construction, 

Municipal  Government  in  England  and  France,  i.  258. 
Guilds  the  original  protectors  of  municipal  liberties,  i.  260. 
Middle  Ages,  Struggle  for  municipal  liberties,  ii.  61,  72,  100. 
Municipal  Religion,  Creation  of,  in  Greece  and  Rome,  i.  192,  195,  197. 
Myxomycetes,  An  unconscious  association  of  individuals,  i.  247. 

"M'ATIONAL,  or  Primary  Environment,  i.  141. 
Natural  Law,  or  Law  of  Nature. 
Contradictory  Conceptions,  i.  5. 


590  IXDEX 

Natural  Law  {continued). 
Defiuitions. 

Montesquieu,  i.  17. 
Proposed  Defiuitiou,  i.  71. 
Ulpian,  i.  20. 
Evolution.     (See  that  title.) 

Human  Laws  and  Laws  of  Nature,  Difference  between,  i.  16. 
Ideal  or  Moral  Law  regarded  as  synonymous  with  Natural  Law. 
Mistaken  Theory  of  Early  Jurists,  i.  1 8,  20. 
Ritchie's,  Prof.,  Inconsistency  of  Expressiou,  i.  38. 
Predatory  System.     (See  that  title.) 
Quesnay's  Conception  of  the  Law  of  Nature,  i.  28. 
■Rousseau's  Political  Philosophy,  i.  25,  27. 
Natural  Rights. 

Contrast  between  Rights  under  the  Law  of  Man  and  so-called  Natu- 
ral Eights,  i.  293,  311. 
Inconsistency  and  Error  involved  in  the  expression,  i.  28,  29 ;  ii.  434. 
Notion  of,  in  Early  Times,  i.  20. 
Rousseau  and  Quesnay,  Similarity  of  teaching,  i.  26. 
Natural  Selection. 

Climate.     (See  that  title.) 
Competition.     ( See  that  title.) 
Darwinian  Theory,  i.  .59. 
Definition,  i.  88. 

Human  Selection  distinguished  from,  i.  123. 
Summary,  i.  171. 

(Eor  discussion  as  to   how  far  Natural   Selection  operates  on 
Man,  see  titles  Climate,  Competition,  Sexual  Selection, 
etc.) 
"War.     (See  that  title.) 
Naturalisation,  Granting,  in  a  CoUectivist  State,  ii.  325. 
Nature,  vol.  i.,  bk.  i.,  ch.  i.,  pp.  13-32. 

Ambiguity  of  Terms  "  Nature  "  and  "  Natural,"  Prof.  Ritchie  on,  i. 

14. 
Beauty  of  Nature  lies  mostly  in  Man's  Moral  Apprehension  of  it,  i. 

47. 
Collectivism. 

Objection  that  it  would  be  Artificial  or  Contrary  to  Nature,  ii. 

371. 
Objections  imposed  by  Nature,  ii.  447. 
Compensation,  Emerson's  Essay  on,  i.  277. 
Creating  Power  in  Nature,  Substituting  words  "  Propagating  Power  " 

for  "  Creator,"  i.  35. 
Definition.     (See  sub-heading  Meanings.) 
Dual  Aspect,  i.  43. 

Effort,   Nature    distinguished  from  the   Conscious  Effort  of  Man. 
(See  Effort.) 


INDEX  591 

Nature  (contimied). 

Greek  Notiou  of  Nature,  i.  43. 

Inequalities  amongst  Men.     (See  that  title.) 

Justice,  Nature  an  obstacle  to  the  attainment  of,  i.  305,  330. 

Legislation,  Limit  set  by  Nature,  i.  271,  272,  338. 

Liberty  in  Nature  a  question  of  physical  strength,  ii.  205. 

"Live  according  to  Nature,"   Teaching  of  Roman  Pliilosophers,  ii. 

17. 
Man  as  a  Factor  in  the  domain  of  Nature,  i.  36. 
Meanings  of  the  word  "  Nature." 

Definition  involving  acceptance  of  the  duality  of  Nature,  i.  48. 
Definition  suggested  for  the  purpose  of  Political  Argument,  i. 

50. 
Nature  distinguished  from  the  Conscious  Effort  of  Man.     (See 

Effort.) 
Original  and  Derived  Meanings,  i.  34,  35. 
Predatory  System.     (See  that  title.) 
Summary,  i.  48,  70. 
Nature  "Worship  and  False  Poetic  Sentiment,  i.  40. 
Neo-Darwinian  and  Neo-Lamarckian  Schools,  i.  58-64. 
Nervous  Prostration,  Condition  maintained  by  the  domination  of  a  false 

idea,  ii.  31. 
Nervous  System,  ii.  192. 

Additional  Central  Nervous  System  differentiating  Man  from  Ani- 
mals, ii.  193. 
New  Ycrk. 

Corruption  resulting  from  the  alliance  between  business  and  politics, 

ii.  163,  164,  167. 
Good  Government  Clubs,  i.  vi ;  ii.  164. 
Laissez  /aire   Doctrine,   Pernicious   influence   in   a   Club   organised 

against  Municipal  Misgovernment,  i.  243. 
Pauper  Colony  Bill,  Rejection  of,  ii.  296  and  7wte. 
Tammany  Hall,  Overthrow  of,  in  the  elections  of  1893,  i.  152,  note; 
ii.  165. 
Non-matter,  Use  of  term  to  include  all  that  is  not  matter,  i.  120. 
Non-natural,  Use  of  term  for  all  that  is  not  natural,  i.  120. 
Norman  Pirates,  Generosity  of,  ii.  75. 
Numa  Pompilius,  Political  Work  of,  i.  195. 

/^FFICIAL. 

^^  Official  and  State,  Objections  to  Collectivism  suggested  by  the  terms, 
ii.  263. 
Position  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  contrasted  with  the  position  of  an 
official  under  existing  conditions,  ii.  264,  266. 
Oil  Trust,  History  of,  showing  that  Trusts  are  powerless  to  dictate  prices, 
ii.  552. 


592  IXDEX 

Organic  Selection,  Theory  of,  i.  64. 

Organic  and  Inorganic  States,  Sir  J.  R.  Seeley's  Classification  of  Forms  of 

Government,  i.  253. 
Osbom's,  Prof.,  Summary  of  the  Theory  of  Organic  Selection,  i.  64. 
Over-production. 

Colonisation  stimulated  by,  ii.  129,  149,  159,  232. 

Evil  of  the  present  system  and  benefits  of  a  system  of  Collectivism,  ii. 

284. 
Falsehood  of  Statement  and  Fact  resulting  from  Competition,  ii.  134. 
Foreign  Markets,  Over-production  stimulating  search  for,  ii.  129,  131, 
149,  159,  231. 
Industrial  Commission  Report,  ii.  542. 
Increased  number  of  Transactions,  Method  of  making-up  for  dimin- 
ished profits,  ii.  127,  128. 
Irregularity  of  employment  due  to,  ii.  126,  132. 
Partial  Over-production,  ii.  126  and  note. 
Prices,  Methods  of  restoring  high  prices,  ii.  541. 
Recurring  periods  of  general  over-production,  Theory  of,  ii.  126,  note. 
Say,  Mr.  J.  B.,  on,  ii.  536. 
Summary  of  Consequences,  ii.  131. 
Trusts,  Over-production  the  principal  cause  of,  ii.  536,  537. 

TDAN,  god  of  hunters.  Legendary  suggestion  of  the  Predatory  system,  i. 

■*•     43. 

Pan- Athenian  Feast,  Institution  of,  i.  192. 

Pantheistic  Philosophy  substituting  Nature  for  God,  i.  35. 

Papal  Power,  Rise  of,  ii.  56. 

Partial  Collectivism.     (See  Collectivism.) 

Party  System  of  Government,  Scope  for,  in  a  CoUectivist  State,  ii.  326. 

Patriarchal  System,  ii.  219. 

Origin  of  human  civilisation,  Sir  H.  Maine's  Theory,  i.  186,  187. 
Patriotism. 

Concentrating  Energy,  Force  of  patriotism,  ii.  26. 

Rome,  Patriotism  in,  ii.  16. 

Selfishness,  Form  of,  ii.  25,  note. 
Pauperism  and  Crime. 

Description  of  what  pauperism  is,  ii.  154. 

Dutch  method  of  dealing  with  paupers,  Farm  Colonies,  ii.  296,  399. 

Elimination  by  universal  practice  of  Charity  and  Sacrifice,  Doctrine 
of,  ii.  153. 

Guilds,  Tyranny  and  Exclusiveness  causing  pauperism,  ii.  108. 

Industrialism,  Pauperism  and  Crime  an  inevitable  result,  ii.  154,  156. 

Market,  Tyranny  of,  ii.  112. 

New  York,  Rejection  of  Pauper  Colony  Bill,  ii.  296  and  note. 

Treatment  of,  under  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  155,  157. 

Unwillingness  to  work,  Cause  and  Cure  of,  ii.  294. 


INDEX  593 

PerfectibUity  of  the  Kaee. 

Paith.  Value  of,  in  political  science,  ii.  470. 
Spencer  Theory,  i.  3,  118. 
Personal  Attractiveness,  Difference  in,  a  barrier  to  equality  amongst  men, 

i.  315,  338. 
Philanthropy,   Spencer's  Denunciation   of  "  Coercive   philanthropy,"   i. 

242. 
Phlhppines,  Annexation  by  the  United  States,  Demand  for  new  markets, 

ii.  131,  159. 
Physiological  View  of  Government,  ii.  9,  528. 
Physiology  of  the  Mind,  ii.  190. 
Pianos,  Manufacture  of,  by  Private  Enterprise  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii. 

410,414. 
Piece-work  System,  in  connection  with  Collectivism,  ii.  269. 
Poetic  False  Sentiment  and  Nature  Worship,  i.  40. 
Pohtical  Institutions. 

Force  of  Habit  in  framing  early  institutions,  i.  180. 
Political  Liberty,  ii.  239. 

Collectivism  interfering  with,  alleged,  ii.  351. 
Definition,  ii.  227. 

United  States,  Political  Liberty  in,  Spencer  on,  ii.  351. 
Value  of,  ii.  233. 
Political  Office,  Property  in,  ii.  529,  530. 
Political  Science,  Value  of  Faith  in,  ii.  469. 
Political  Student  and  the  Medical  Practitioner,  Similarity  of  Tasks,  i. 

297. 
Politics. 

Corruption  arising  from  the  alliance  between  business  and  politics,  ii. 

160,  161,  234. 
Debate,  Discursiveness  limited  by  the  Definition  of  Justice  proposed, 

i.  324. 
Duty  of  Co-operation  and  of  substituting  intellectual  for  accidental 

methods,  ii.  491. 
Idea,  Power  of,  ii.  32. 
Political  Struggles,  Definition  as  struggles  between  different  groups 

of  the  community  upon  the  question  of  property,  ii.  222. 
Practical  Politics,  Elements  which  must  concur  to  bring  a  measure 

within  range  of,  ii.  505. 
Reform  movements.  Failure  of,  owing  to  collision  with  private  inter- 
ests, ii.  163,  165. 
Science  and  Religion,  Tendency  of  both  to  discourage  effort,  ii.  526, 
Selfishness,  Action  of.  Enactment  of  those  measures  only  which  have 

behind  them  the  largest  political  fund,  ii.  507,  525. 
Workingmen,  Attitude   of,  Confidence  in  Trade  Unions  shaken   by 
the  result  of  the  engineers'  strike  in  1897-98,  ii.  523. 
Poor  Laws  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Increase  in  Pauperism,  ii.  109. 

38 


594  INDEX 

Population. 

Collectivism  forming  no  check  to  population  alleged,  Proposed  check, 

ii.  339. 
Increase  in,  under  stimulus  of  colonisation,  ii.  129. 
Waste  of  population,  Treatment  of,  under  the  Competitive  System,  ii. 
155,157. 
Predatory  System. 

Community  Law,  i.  295. 
Compensation,  Emerson's  Essay  on,  i.  277. 
Competition.     (See  that  title.) 
Definition,  i.  29. 
Description,  i.  44. 

Forces  at  work  in  the  relation  between  predator  and  prey,  ii.  66,  68. 
Greek  notion  of  Nature,  i.  43. 
Tribal  conflict,  i.  81. 

Working  of  the  law  of  survival  of  the  fittest  in  a  state  of  Nature  and 
the  working  of  it  subject  to  the  influence  of  man,  i.  73. 
Prices. 

Methods  of  restoring  high  prices,  ii.  541. 
Normal,  Natural,  or  Static  Price,  ii.  547. 
Trusts,  Effect  of. 

Fluctuations  determined  by  the  World's  production.  Trusts  un- 
able to  materially  affect,  i.  550. 
Jenks's,  Prof.,  Tables,  ii.  548. 

Lowering  of  prices  owing  to  the  appreciation  of  Currency,  Trusts 
unable  to  resist  the  general  law,  ii.  549. 
Primary  or  National  Environment,  i.  141. 
Primogeniture,  i.  130. 
Private  Enterprise,  Scope  for,  in  a  CoUectivist  Community,  ii.  392,  409. 

Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise,  ii.  412. 
Private  Property.     (See  Property.) 

Proctor,  Mr.  J.  R.,  on  Over-production  in  the  United  States,  ii.  159. 
Production. 

Elimination  of  competition,  Political  v.  Commercial  Methods,  ii.  2. 
Over-production.     (See  that  title.) 

Spencer  encomiums  on  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  285,  note. 
Trusts,  Economies  resulting  from,  ii.  544. 

Wastefulness  of  the  competitive  system,  and  economy  that  would  be 
effected  under  a  CoUectivist  form  of  government,  ii.  278,  284. 
Productive  toil.  Power  of,  Inequality  amongst  men,  ii.  185. 
Profit. 

Diminished  profits,  making  up  deficit  by  increased  number  of  trans- 
actions, ii.  127,  128. 
Rate  of  profit  regulating  movements  of  Capital,  ii.  132. 
"  Progress  and  Poverty,"  Rhetorical  Insincerity  of  certain  passages,  i.  31. 
Prohibition,  Legislation  exacting  of  the  public  greater  self-restraint  than 
it  is  capable  of,  i.  271. 


INDEX  595 

Propagating  Power,  Substituting,  for  the  word  "  Creator  "  to  denote  creat- 
ing power  in  Nature  as  opposed  to  creating  power  outside  of  Nature, 
i.  35. 
Property,  Private  Property,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  87-174. 
Church  and  Private  Property,  ii.  170. 
Civilising  force  of,  by  promoting  self-control,  ii.  89. 
Collectivism. 

Abolition  of  the  principle  of  private  property  in  the  sources  of 

production,  ii.  242,  262. 
Division  of  property  amongst  the  people,  Mistaken  notion  regard- 
ing Collectivism,  ii.  243. 
Elimination  of  private  property  the  accumulation  of  which  could 
control  the  services  of  others,  ii.  372,  373. 
Combination  against.     (See  titles  Trade  Combinations  and  Trade 

Unions.) 
Curtailing  the  rights  of  private  property  in  proportion  as  the  degree 

of  socialisation  becomes  higher,  ii.  229. 
Definition,  ii.  226. 

Democratic  force  of,  by  overthrowing  aristocracy  of  birth,  ii.  96. 
Dutij  to  respect  property  in  return  for  the  advantage  of  rigid  in  prop- 
erty, ii.  225. 
Industrial  results,  ii.  124. 
Kinds  of  property,  ii.  529. 

Necessary  phase  through  which  man  had  to  pass,  ii.  444. 
Preservation  of  private  property  an  instance  of  selfishness  masquerad- 
ing as  humanity,  i.  302. 
Political  struggles.  Definition  as  struggles  between  different  groups 

of  the  community  upon  the  question  of  property,  ii.  222. 
Recognition  of  Property,  i.  312;  ii.  225. 
Animals,  ii.  90,  91,  183,  note,  223,  372. 
Property  of  the  Male  in  the  Female,  i.  108. 
Eights  of  Property. 

Natural  contrasted  with  Human  Law,  i.  293,  311. 
Opportunities  for  oppression,  ii.  225. 

Sentiment  of  Justice,  Comparison  of  Spartan  with  Modern  opin- 
ion, i.  289. 
Self-control. 

Elimination  of  inherited  instincts  of  ferocity  and  servility  through 

the  institutions  of  private  property,  ii.  94. 
Men  and  animals  solving  the  problem  of  property  by  exercise  of, 
ii.  91. 
Sense  of,  involving  a  sense  of  obligation,  ii.  91,  184. 
Social  results,  ii.  152,  157. 

Socialising  force  of,  by  association  in  guilds,  ii.  102. 
Tyranny  of,  The  Market,  ii.  111. 
Proprietary  Articles,  Device  for  escaping  pressure  of  competition,  ii.  161- 


596  INDEX 

Prostitution. 

Collectivist  Society,  Disappearance  of  Prostitution,  ii.  343. 

State  Employment  a  solution  of  the  economic  problem,  ii.  400. 

Definition,  ii.  343. 

Economic  Problem,  ii.  3. 

Morality,  Attitude  of,  i.  320. 

Price  paid  for  the  institution  of  Marriage,  i.  131. 

Reduced  Wages,  Effect  of,  ii.  135. 
Protection,  Expedient  for  escaping  from  foreign  competition,  ii.  161. 
Public  Enterprises,  Economy  of  Collectivism,  ii.  27G. 
Public  Opinion,  i.  271. 

Public  Ownership  of  public  utilities,  Hypothetical  development  of  Col- 
lectivism in  the  United  States,  ii.  393. 
Public  Stores,  Hypothetical  development  of  Collectivism  in  the  United 
States,  ii.  395. 

QUESNAY  and  Rousseau,  Similarity  of  teachings  on  Natural  Rights, 
i.  26. 

■p  ABBIT,  Pursuit  of,  by  Weasel,  Characteristics  of  herbivora  and  carni- 

■'^     vora,  i.  76. 

Hailroads. 

Economy  of  Collectivism,  ii.  276. 

Sacrifice  of  the  picturesque  owing  to  exigencies  of  the  Competitive 
System,  ii.  379. 
Keason  the  great  enemy  of  religions  enthusiasm,  ii.  37. 
Reasoning  Power  in  Animals,  Dr.  Thorndike's  Experiments,  i.  166. 
Religion. 

Aim  of,  ii.  499. 

Ancient  Religions,  Appearance  of  being  the  degenerate  relics  of  a 

purer  religion,  i.  182. 
Anti-social  Force,  Religion  as. 
Arab  Individualism,  ii.  21. 

Greece  and  Rome,  Family  religion  exercising  an  anti-social  ten- 
dency, i.  183. 
Collectivism,  Sanction  of  religion,  ii.  485,  502. 
Community  life,  Value  of  religion,  ii.  500. 
Concentrating  Energy,  Force  of  religion,  ii.  26. 
Decay  of  the  Religious  idea,  ii.  60. 
Definition,  i.  84. 

Development  retarded  by  Religion,  Instance  of,  i.  99. 
Effort. 

Capacity  for,  bolstered  by  Religion,  i.  358. 

Discouragement  of,  by  exaggerating  the  role  of  Providence,  ii.  526. 
Faith,  ii.  466. 

Definition  of,  ii.  499. 


INDEX  597 

Religion  [continued). 

Government  for  the  benefit  of  the  governing  class,  Religion  perpetu- 
ating, i.  214. 
Greece  and  Rome,  Development  of  Civilisation.     (See  that  title.) 
Guilds,  Media;val,  Preponderating  role  of  religion,  ii.  103. 
Habit,  Influence  of,  i.  181,  183. 
Idea,  Power  of,  in  religion,  ii.  23. 
Intelligence  and  Religion,  Determining  respective  roles  of,  in  evolu 

tion  and  development,  i.  85. 
Kidd's,  Mr.,  Views  on  role  of,  in  social  evolution,  i.  83. 
Man  differentiated  from  animals  by  the  fact  of  religion,  i.  82,  84. 
Methods  by  which  religion  operates  upon  men,  ii.  27. 
Middle  Ages,  Preponderating  role  of  the  religious  idea,  ii.  18,  29,  46, 

55,  101. 
Mohammedanism,  ii.  20,  28. 
Morality  and  Religion,  ii.  494. 

Comparison  of,  ii.  498. 
Place  of,  in  the  scheme  of  forces  at  work  in  society,  ii.  71. 
Reason  the  great  enemy  of  religious  enthusiasm,  ii.  37. 
Reverence,  Gift  of,  conferred  by  Religion,  ii.  501. 
Science  and  Religion. 

Conflict  between,  ii.  464,  489,  503. 

Difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  aim  of  government,  ii.  518. 
Social  Factor  in  Primitive  Civilisation,  i.  183. 
Keverence,  Gift  of,  conferred  by  religion,  ii.  501. 
Eight  to  a  trade.  Trade  Union  problems  arising  from  conflicting  claims, 

Case  of  Shipwrights  and  Joiners,  ii.  141. 
Bights. 

Contrast  between  Rights  under  the  Law  of  Man  and  so-called  Natural 

Rights,  i.  293,  311. 
Natural  Rights.     (See  that  title.) 
Rights  of  Property.     (See  Property.) 
Ritchie,  Prof. 

Destructiveness  of  Prof.  Ritchie's  philosophical  work,  i.  15,  16. 
Nature  and  Natural,  Animadversion  on  ambiguity  of  terms,  i.  14. 
Nature,  Confusion  arising  from  the  use  of  the  word  to  include  and 
also  to  exclude  man,  i.  37. 
Rochefoucauld,  Definition  of  Justice,  i.  279. 
Rocks,  Preservation  of  the  records  of  Natural  Evolution,  i.  56. 
Rodbertus,  Equalisation  and  Rotation  of  tasks  in  a  CoUectivist  State,  ii. 

268,  271. 
Roman  Church.     (See  Christian  Church.) 
Rome  and   Greece,  Development  of   Civilisation.     (See  Greece  and 

Rome.) 
Rousseau,  Political  Philosophy  of,  i.  25. 


598  INDEX 

OAY,  Mr.  J.  B.,  on  Over-production,  ii.  53G. 

Scenery,  Destruction  of,  owing  to  Industrial  considerations,  ii.  381. 
Schafile's  Definition  of  Collectivism,  ii.  250. 
Science. 

Effort,  Discouragement  of,  by  destroying  hope,  ii.  526. 
Government,  Aim  of,  Difference  of  opinion  between  different  groups 

in  the  Scientific  world,  ii.  519. 
Religion  and  Science,  Conflict  between,  ii.  464,  489,  503. 

Difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  aim  of  Government,  ii.  518. 
Science   oifering  no   explanation  of   the  force  which  animates   the 
world,  ii.  462. 
Secondary   or  International   Environment.     (See   International  or 

Secondary  Environment.) 
Seeley,  Sir  J.  R. 

Forms  of  Government,  Classification  as  organic  and  inorganic,  i.  253. 
Liberty,  ii.  204. 

Society  and  living  organisms.  Resemblance  between,  i.  253. 
Self-government,   Struggles  of  the  people  in  the  11th  and  succeeding 

centuries,  ii.  61,  72,  100. 
Self-restraint,  Evolution  of,  i.  112,  120. 

Animals,  Capacity  for  self-restraint,  i.  116. 

Human  Self-restraint  differentiated  from  that  observed  in  Animals, 

i.  117. 
Inequality  in  power  of,  amongst  men,  ii.  185. 
Monogamy,  Benefit  of,  i.  127. 

Moral  Qualities  in  Man,  Development  of.     (See  that  title.) 
Private  property.  Civilising  force  of,  by  promoting  self-control,  ii.  89. 
Religious  idealist's  standpoint,  i.  112,  117. 
Spencer  Theory,  i.  117. 
Selfishness. 

Distraction  of  energy  occasioned  by,  ii.  23,  24. 

Doctrine  that  selfishness  is  ineradicable,  Collectivism  in  connection 

with,  ii.  260. 
Effort,  Capacity  for.  Selfishness  bolstering,  i.  358. 
Happiness,  Selfishness  the  great  obstacle,  ii.  527. 
Inconsistency  and  hopelessness  of  the  effort  to  build  selfish  institutions 

upon  an  unselfish  religious  idea,  ii.  37. 
Justice. 

Attainment  of.  Selfishness  an  obstacle,  i.  302. 
Sentiment  of  Justice,  Contention  that  Selfishness  is  a  contribut- 
ing Factor,  i.  291. 
Meaning  for  purpose  of  Political  discussion,  Selfishness  which  disre- 
gards the  interest  of  others,  ii.  25,  note. 
Politics,  Constancy  of  Selfishness,  Enactment  of  those  measures  only 
which  have  behind  them  the  largest  Political  fund,  ii.  507,  525. 
Sentiment  of  Justice.     (See  Justice.) 


INDEX  599 

Servants,  Question  of  Domestic  Service  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  424. 
Servius  Tullius,  Political  work  of,  i.  197. 
Sewage  Disposal,  ii.  154,  155. 
Sexual  Jealousy. 

Animals,  i.  107,  110,  187,  276. 

Man,  Development  of  recognition  of  Property  of  the  Male  in  the 

Female,  i.  108. 
Social  Improvement  Schemes,  Failure  to  take  due  account  of  Sexual 
Jealousy,  i.  133,  note;  ii.  347. 
Sexual  Relations. 
Animals,  i.  109. 
Defined  Sexual  Relations,  Development  of,  by  survival  of  Monogamy, 

i.  111. 
Man,  i.  186,  188;  ii.  219. 
Summary,  i.  133. 

(See  also  titles  Marriage  and  Monogamy.) 
Sexual  Selection. 

Competition  between  individuals  of  the  same  species,  i.  90. 
Human  distinguished  from  Animal  Selection,  i.  103. 
Human  Selection,  General  Tendencies,  i.  126. 
Shaw,  Mr.  A.,  on  Municipal  Government  in  England  and  France,  i.  258,  261. 
Shelley's  dictum  that  a  man  who  is  starving  is  not  free,  ii.  205. 
Shipbuilding   Trade,  Problems  arising  from  conflicting  claims  of  ship- 
wrights and  joiners,  ii.  141. 
Single  Tax,  Theory  of,  ii.  421. 
Sister  of  Charity,  Training  of,  a  carefully  devised  system  for  destroying 

self-consideration,  ii.  27. 
Slavery. 

Slavery  consistent  with  Natural  Law  and  Pioman  Politics,  i.  232. 
Social  and  Industrial  conditions  creating,  ii.  207,  364. 
Status  of  a  Slave,  Sir  J.  R.  Seeley's  Description,  ii.  205. 
Ulpian's  Definition  of  the  Law  of  Nature,  i.  20. 
Smith,  Adam,  on  the  exercise  of  Justice,  i.  317. 
Socialism,  Objections  to.  Individualist  Arguments,  ii.  228. 
Social  Classification. 

Collectivist  State,  ii.  299,  300. 

Substituting  a  wealth  basis  for  that  of  birth  and  religion,  i.  194,  197  ; 
ii.  96. 
Social  Improvement  Schemes,  Failure  to  take  due  account  of  Natural 
Hostile  Forces :  — 
Nature  herself  an  obstacle  to  the  attainment  of  Justice,  i.  305. 
Sexual  Jealousy,  i.  133  ;  ii.  347. 
Social  Mind,  vol.  ii.,  bk.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  175-202. 
Animals,  i.  176;  ii.  179. 

Character  of  the  socialising  force  that  brings  Animals  together 
for  a  common  purpose  has  so  far  baffled  Scientific  explanation, 
ii.  180. 


600  INDEX 

Social  Mind  (continued). 

Definition,  ii.  177,  178,  note. 

Inconsistencies  of  character  arising  from  failure  of  education  to  take 

account  of  the  duality  of  the  mind,  ii.  196. 
Man,  ii.  184. 

Physiology  of  the  Mind,  ii.  190. 

Points  of  view  from  which  the  Social  Mind  must  be  studied,  ii.  178. 
Kesponse  of  the  Social  Mind  to  influences  about  it,  Extent  and  manner 

of,  ii.  199. 
Self-consciousness,  Faculty  for,  ii.  192. 

Sub-conscious  Automaton  within  the  conscious  mind,  ii.  190,  194. 
Summary,  ii.  195. 
Society. 

Comparison  to  a  green-house,  i.  250. 

Conscious  Forces  engaged  in  moulding   Society,  Principle  of   Con- 
struction :  — 
Education,  i.  266. 

Government,  Conscious  forces  in  operation,  ii.  67,  92. 
Heligion  belonging  to  the  Conscious  forces  so  far  as  it  is  unper- 

verted  by  selfishness,  ii.  71. 
Self-restraint,  Faculty  of,  i.  248,  270. 
Contention  that  Society  is  an  organism  :  — 

Difference  not  mentioned  by  Spencer,  i.  246. 

Differences  distinguishing  Society  from  an  organism,  i.  246,  267. 

Seeley's,  Sir  J.  R.,  Conclusions,  i.  253. 

Society  resembles  an  organism  only  in  so  far  as  it  escapes  the 

control  of  art,  i.  263,  265. 
Spencer's  Teaching,  i.  239,  240,  242,  245. 
Summary,  i.  267  ;  ii.  441,  443. 
Definition,  i.  264. 
Development  of  societies  of  men  and  of  societies  of  other  living 

organisms,  Difference  between,  i.  246  ;  ii.  68,  443,  446. 
Society,  though   not   an   organism,  is  an  association  of  organisms. 

Limit  to  legislation,  i.  271. 
Unconscious  forces  engaged  in  moulding  Society,  Principle  of  growth. 
Association,  Faculty  of,  i.  247,  269. 
Custom,  i.  264. 
Egotism,  i.  266,  269. 

Government,  Forces  at  work  corresponding  to  the  relation  be- 
tween predator  and  prey,  ii.  67,  92, 
Habit,  i.  248  ;  ii.  34,  47. 
Idea,  Power  of,  in  politics,  ii.  32. 
Philanthropy,  i.  266. 
Soil,  Difference  in  value  of,  an  obstacle  to  the  equalisation  of  men,  i.  310, 

312. 
Solon,  Political  work  of,  i.  193. 


INDEX  601 

Soul,  Defined  for  the  purpose  of   political  discussion  as  faculty  of  con- 
scious effort,  i.  250. 
Spanish-American  War,   an   instance   of    selfishness  masquerading  as 

humanity,  i.  302. 
Sparta,  Failure  of  the  Communistic  Constitution  imposed  by  Lycurgus,  i. 

200. 
Spencer,  Mr.  Herbert. 

Ancestor  Worship,  i.  186. 
Evolution,  Definition  of,  i.  67,  245. 
Justice,  Description  of,  i.  280. 

Proposed  definition  of  justice  contrasted  with  Spencerian  philos- 
ophy, ii.  5. 
Marriage  and  "  Adaptation  of  Function  to  Environment,"  1.  104,  111. 
Political  Liberty  in  the  United  States,  ii.  351. 
Production  and  Distribution  under  the  Competitive  System,  ii.  285, 

note. 
Self-restraint,  "Doomed  to  Perfection"  Theory,  i.  117. 
Social  Development  forming  part  of  Evolution  in  general,  i.  244. 
Society  and  living  organisms,  Analogy  between,  i.  239,  240,  242,  245. 
Virtue,  Evolution  of.  Factor  of  will  ignored,  i.  355. 
Spirit  and  Spiritual,  Use  of  the  words  "  Nature  "  and  "  Natural  "  as  op- 
posed to,  i.  39. 
Sponge,  An  unconscious  association  of  individuals,  i.  247  ;  ii.  180. 
Sports,  i.  114,  158,  215. 
State. 

Art,  Necessity  for  State  Intervention  in  some  fields  of  art,  ii.  377. 

Family  and  the  State,  Differences  between,  i.  225. 

Ofiicial  and  State,  Objections  to  Socialism  suggested  by  the  terms,  ii. 

263. 
Relation  of  an  individual  to  the  State,  Inconsistency  of  action  in,  ii. 
197. 
State  Orders. 

Dividend  Coupon  and  State  Order,  Difference  between,  ii.  402,  note. 
Transferable  Order  on  public  stores,  expressed  in  money,  ii.  396. 
Steel  Trust,  History  of,  ii.  540. 
Stimulus  to  exertion  insufficient,  Objection  to  Collectivism,  discussed,  ii. 

365. 
Strikes. 

Character,  Change  in.  Royal  Labour  Commission  Report,  ii.  144. 
Nufnber  of,  per  annum,  ii.  144. 
Sugar  Trust. 

Competition,  Influence  in  keeping  prices  reasonable,  ii.  550. 
History  of,  showing  evil  of  over-production,  ii.  540. 
Suggestion,  Power  of,  ii.  194,  345,  368. 
Summary  of  Arguments  presented  in  vols.  i.  and  ii.,  ii.  433. 
Survival  of  the  Fittest.     (See  Pkedatort  System.) 


602  INDEX 

Sweating  System,  ii.  145,  486. 
Syphilis,  i.  98. 

'yAMMANY  HAIjIj,  Overthrow  of,  in  the  New  York  Elections  of 

1893,  i.  152,  note;  ii.  165. 
Teleological  View  of  Government,  ii.  529. 
Temperament,  i.  76,  ttote. 
Templars,  Order  of,  ii.  99. 
Theseus,  Political  Reforms  attributed. to,  i.  191. 

Thorndike's,  Dr.,  Experiments  on  reasoning  power  in  Animals,  i.  166. 
Time,  Element  of,  in  Natural  and  in  Human  Evolution,  i.  157,  169. 

Adaptation  of  Animal  Organisms  to  new  environments.  Experi- 
ments, i.  158. 
Homology  between  the  character  of  change  adopted  in  the  Dal- 
linger  Experiments  and  the  character  of  change  in  the  political 
organism.  Alternating  ascendency  of  Liberal  and  Conserva- 
tive Parties  in  England,  i.  162. 
Human  institutions  cannot  profitably  develop  faster  than  individual 

character,  i.  169. 
Individualism  and  Collectivism,  Alternative  adoption  of,  ii.  4,  14. 
Mind  of  Man  differing  from  that  of  Animals  in  rapidity  of  adapta- 
tion   to   changes    of   intellectual    environment.   Dr.   Thorndike's 
Experiments,  i.  166. 
Towns,  Struggles  for  self-government  in  the  11th  and  succeeding  Cen- 
turies, ii.  61,  72,  100. 
Trade. 

Competition.     (See  that  title.) 

Falsehood  of  statement  and  fact  induced  by  Competition,  ii.  134. 
Foreign  Merchants,  Harassing  restrictions  in  the  Middle  Ages,  ii.  101. 
Foreign  Trade. 

Collectivist  Community,  Foreign  Trade  in,  ii.  337. 
Over-production  stimulating  search  for  foreign  markets,  ii.  129, 
131,  149,159,  231. 
Industrial  Commission  Eeport,  ii.  542,  note. 
Militarism  yielding  to  Industrialism,  Influence  of  the  Crusades,  ii.  73, 
100. 
Trade  Combinations. 

Alliances,  Combination  of  Workmen  and  Employers,  ii.  150,  151,  161, 

215,  216,  note,  554. 
Employers,  ii.  214. 

France,  Associations  of  Employers  and  Employees,  ii.  553. 
Guilds.     (See  that  title.) 

IMajor  and  Minor  Arts,  Combination  of  Workingmen  in  Italy,  ii.  100. 
Trade  Unions. 

Act  of  1799  forbidding  Combinations  of  Workingmen,  ii.  211. 
Administration,  Development  of,  ii.  315. 


I 


INDEX  603 

Trade  Unions  (continued). 

Appreuticesbip  Question,  ii.  138. 

Boy  Labour,  Attempted  Restriction,  ii.  140. 

"  Complacency  "  and  "  Contempt,"  Spirit  of,  engendered  by  Trade 

Unionism,  ii.  319. 
Confidence   of   Workmen  shaken  by   the  result    of    the   Engineers' 

Strike  in  1897-98,  Alternative  of  Politics,  ii.  523. 
Legal   Position,  Power  to  use    the  Law  Courts  to  discipline  others 

without  possibility  of  attack  in  return,  ii.  211. 
Limitations,  ii.  148. 

Political  Errors  corrected  in  Members,  ii.  316. 

Power  of  compelling  membership  and  of  controlling  actions  of  non- 
members,  ii.  211. 
Eight  to  a  Trade,  Problems  arising  from  conflicting  claims,  Case  of 

Shipwrights  and  Joiners,  ii.  141. 
Service  rendered  by  Trade  Unions,  ii.  137. 
Social  Lessons  taught  to  members,  ii.  317. 
Sweating :  An  unsolved  problem,  ii.  145. 
Unemployed  :  An  unsolved  problem,  ii.  148. 
Wages. 

Common  Rule,  a  universally  applied  rate  of,  ii.  142. 
Eoreign  Competition  limiting  efforts  to  raise,  ii.  136. 
Members  of  Trade  Unions  consenting  to  reduction  of  wages  in 
order  to  raise  the  general  level,  ii.  317. 
Women,  Attempted  restriction  of  labour,  ii.  140. 
Work,  Restriction  of,  under  the  common  rule  of  wages.  Specimen  by- 
laws, ii.  142. 
Transmutation,  Lamarck  Theory,  i.  58-64. 
Tribe,  Development  of,  i.  79,  84,  108. 
Truce  of  God,  ii.  78. 
Trusts. 

Administration  of,  by  the  State. 

Hypothetical  development  of  Collectivism  in  the  United  States, 

ii.  394. 
Impossibility   of    Government    Control,   Anti-Trust    legislation 
compelling  Trusts  to  become  more  powerful,  ii.  559. 
Competition. 

Elimination  or  Diminution  of,  ii.  161,  548. 

Influence  of,  forcing  Trusts  to  keep  prices  reasonable,  ii.  547,  550. 
Economic  Advantages  of,  Evidence  taken  by  the  Industrial  Commis- 
sion, i.  535. 
Economy  resulting  from 
Distribution. 

Cross-Freights,  Freedom  from,  i.  545. 

"  Getting  the  Market,"  Economy  effected  by  dispensing  with 
advertising  and  commercial  travellers,  ii.  275,  546. 


604  INDEX 

Trusts  (continued). 
Production. 

Time  saved  by  Manufacturing  only  one  dimension,  ii.  545. 
Working  Factories  at  Maximum  EfBciency,  ii.  544. 
Extent    to   •which   combination    prevails    in  a  country  is   a  direct 

measure  of  its  intelligence  and  art,  ii.  555. 
International  Eelations,  Effect  on,  Danger  of  eliminating  interna- 
tional competition,  ii.  555. 
Over-production  the  principal  cause  of,  ii.  536,  537. 
Prices,  Effect  on,  ii.  549,  550. 
Summary,  ii.  553. 
Types  of  Men,  Definition  of  Noble  and  Base  Types,  ii.  446. 

T  TLPIAN,  Definition  of  Law  of  Nature,  i.  20. 
Unemployed. 

Trade  Unions  unable  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  unemployed, 

ii.  148. 
Vagabondage  laws  enacted  in  the  early  part  of  the  16th  cen- 
tury, ii.  108. 
United  States. 

Collectivism,  Hypothetical  Development,  ii.  387. 

Advance  from  Partial   Collectivism  to  Collectivism  Proper,  ii. 

401. 
Corruption,  Elimination  of,  by  substituting  Labour  Cheques  for 

Coin  as  Medium  of  Exchange,  ii.  419. 
Currency,  ii.  416. 

Voluntary  Labour  Cheques,  ii.  410. 
Domestic  Service,  Question  of,  ii.  424. 
Exchange  Value  of  Commodities,  Determination  of,  expressed 

in  Labour  Cheques,  ii.  402. 
Land,  Ownership  of,  ii.  420. 
Limits  of  State  and  Individual  Enterprise,  ii.  412. 
Municipal  Ownership  and  Administration,  Extension  of,  ii.  389. 
National  Ownership  and  Administration,  Extension  of,  ii.  393. 
Occupation,  Choice  of,  ii.  405. 

Pauperism,  Prostitution,  and  Crime,  Treatment  of,  Farm  Colo- 
nies, ii.  399. 
Present  Political  Conditions,  ii.  387. 
Public  Stores,  ii.  395. 
Corruption  resulting  from  the  alliance  between  business  and  politics, 

ii.  162,  167. 
Department  Stores,  ii.  396,  note. 
England  and  the  United  States. 

Impossibility  of  adapting  a  single  CoUectivist  programme  to  both 

countries,  ii.  511. 
Trade  Competition,  ii.  149. 


INDEX  605 

United  States  {continued). 

Europe  and  fche  United  States,  Eelative  preparedness  for  Collectivism, 

ii.  1,  384. 
New  York.     (See  that  title.) 
Over-production  and   the   necessity  for   foreign  markets,  Mr.  J.  E. 

Proctor  on,  ii.  159. 
Philippines,  Annexation  of,  Demand  for  new  markets,  ii.  131,  159. 
Presidential  Campaii^n  of  1896  as  an  illustration  of  conflict  between 
an  unwealthy  majority  and  a  wealthy  minority,  i.  251    note;  ii. 
522. 
Vested  Interests,  Protection  of,  ii.  509. 
TTnselflshness  created  by  the  force  of  a  concentrating  idea,  ii.  28. 
Unskilled  Labour,  Performance  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  298,  301. 

"YTAGABONDAGE,  Penal  laws  enacted  in  the  early  part  of  the  16th 

century,  ii.  108. 
Variability  of  Offspring. 

Artificial  Selection  tending  to  diminish  Variability,  i.  147. 
Collectivism,  Effect  of,  would  not  be  such  as  to  limit  the  activities  of 

men,  ii.  327. 
Current  account  of,  i.  114, 
Darwinian  Theory,  i.  59. 
Education,  Free  Education   creating  an   environment   favourable  to 

progressive  types,  i.  221. 
Equalisation  of  Men,  Variability  an  insurmountable  barrier,  i.  308, 
Industrial  System  as  a  method  of  securing  variation,  i.  221. 
Lamarckian  hypothesis,  i.  115. 
Methods   by  which   the  operation  of  variability  can  be  consciously 

affected,  i.  219. 
Moral  qualities  in  Man,  Development  of,  Apparent  gap  in  Variability, 

i.  115. 
"Sports,"  i.  114,158,  215, 

Strength  of  Variability  in  spite  of  man  substituting  Artificial  for 
Natural  Selection,  i.  138. 
Vegetarianism  an  example  of  the  exaggerated  demands  of  sentiment,  i, 

321. 
Vested  interests,  Compensation  for  disturbance. 

Capricious  action  of  the  British  Parliament,  ii,  508,  and  note. 
United   States  Constitution,  Clause  protecting  vested   interests,   ii. 
509. 
"Villages,"  free  from  labour  regulation.  Rise  of,  ii.  109. 
Vine,  Sir  J.  R.  S.,  on  Municipal  Government  in  England,  i.  259. 
Virtue. 

Animals,  Qualities  corresponding  to  virtue  in   man  develop   out  of 

social  relations,  i.  345  ;  ii.  494, 
Classification  of  Virtues,  i.  350. 


606  INDEX 

Virtue  (continued). 

Conditious  to  which  Virtue  is  subject,  i.  348. 

Conduct,  Virtues  complicated  by  problems  of  conduct,  i.  351. 

Conscience,  Habits  of  heart  or  mind  distinguishing  social  qualities  of 

man  from  those  of  animals,  ii.  496,  497. 
Definition,  i.  347. 

Aristotle's  Definition,  ii.  496. 
Effort. 

Effort  an  essential  factor,  i.  355,  356. 

Man's  social  qualities   distinguished   from  those  of   animals,  i. 

495. 
Evolution  of,  i.  344 ;  ii.  238. 
Justice  regarded  as  a  virtue,  i.  342,  350,  359. 

Problems  of  conduct  complicating  the  virtue  of  justice,  i.  352. 
Voluntary  Labour  ChecLues,  ii.  332,  335,  410,  417,  419. 

"lY-A-G-ES. 

Common  rule.  Trade  Union  plan,  ii.  142. 

Competition  by  tending  to  lower  prices  tends  to  lower  wages,  ii.  113, 
note,  135. 
Possibility  of  improving  condition  of  workingmen  under  exist- 
ing industrial  system,  Hypothetical  illustration,   ii.  113,  116, 
125. 
Women,  Eednction  of  wages  resulting  in  prostitution,  ii.  135. 
Increase  in,  without  compelling  higher  prices,  ii.  113,  iiote,  136,  )iote. 
Trade  Unionists  consenting  to  reduction  of  wages  in  order  to  raise 

the  general  level,  ii.  317. 
Trade  Unions,  Efforts  to  raise  wages  limited  by  foreign  competition, 

ii.  136. 
Women,  Hindrance  to  maintenance  of  high  wages,  ii.  141,  145. 
"Wales,  South,  Coal  Field,  Trade  Union  Dictation  to  Workers,  ii.  212. 
War. 

Modern  Warfare,  Modification  of  Natural  Selection,  i.  103. 

National  Morality,  War  as  a  test,  i.  144. 

Natural  Selection  by,  i.  81,  103,  143. 

Over-production  causing,  owing  to  the   necessity  for  creating  new 

markets,  ii.  158. 
Private  warfare,  llestrictions  on,  in  the  Uth  century,  ii.  78. 
Waste  Products. 

Food  Products,  Disposal  of,  ii.  154. 
Manufacture  of.  Economy  resulting  from,  ii.  543. 
Wealth. 

Ability,  character  of  the  ability  capable  of  profiting  by  the  opportu- 
nities of  wealth,  ii.  98. 
Church,  corrupting  influence  of  wealth,  ii.  99. 
Collectivism  not  involving  any  diminution  of,  ii.  374. 


IXDEX  '  607 

"Wealth  {continued). 

Crusades,  Influence  of,  ii.  73,  100. 

Democratising  factor,  Social  classification  on  a  wealth  basis,  i.  194, 

197;  ii.  97. 
Effect  of,  on  type,  ii.  521. 
Education,  1.  154. 
Example,  i.  152,  155. 
Marriage,  i.  130,  150. 
Inequality  of  men.  Wealth  as  a  cause  of,  i.  251,  314 ;  ii.  520. 

United   States   Presidential  Campaign  of    1896,  i.  251,  note;  ii. 
522. 
Injustice  of  the  present  system,  Rich  men  as  helpless  as  poor,  ii.  Ill, 

486. 
Marriage,  Operation  of  Wealth  on  Marriage  and  on  the  type  pro- 
duced, i.  130,  150. 
Means  and  Ends,  Tendency  to  confuse  with  one  another  and  to  regard 

wealth  as  an  end  in  itself,  ii.  449. 
Morality  of  Compensation,  ii.  475. 
Needs  created  by,  Millionaire  driven  to  the  task  of  accumulation,  ii. 

232. 
Use  of  the  word  "  Wealth "  to  include  consideration  and  political 
power,  i.  223. 
Weasel  pursuing  Rabbit,  Characteristics  of  carnivora  and  herbivora,  i.  76. 
Webb,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S. 

Factory  legislation  varying  in  effectiveness  according  to  trade  union 

expenditure,  ii.  507. 
Spirit  of  "  self-complacency  "  and  "  contempt "  pervading  certain  sec- 
tions of  Trade  Unionism,  ii.  318. 
Weismann  and  Cope-Osborn  Schools,  Issue  between,  on  the  subject  of 

Evolution,  i.  60. 
Whiskey  Trust,  ii.  541. 

Inability  to  maintain  extortionate  prices,  ii.  551. 
"  Will "  in  Man  and  "  Instinct  "  in  Animals,  Difference  between,  i.  346. 
Wisdom. 

Definition  of,  for  the  purpose  of  Political  discussion,  i.  318. 
Substituting,  for  the  word  "  expediency  "  in  reference  to  Legislation, 
i.  318. 
Wolves,  Temporary  association  for  the  purpose  of  securing  food,  ii.  179, 

181. 
Woman  Suffi-age,  Possibility  of,  in  a  Collectivist  State,  ii.  325,  note. 
Women, 

Chivalry. 

Love  of  Woman  substituted  for  the  Love  of  God,  ii.  81. 
R6le  of  Woman  enhanced  by  Chivalry,  ii.  84. 
Collectivism,  Advantages  to  be  derived  from,  ii.  340. 
Restriction  of  Labour,  attempted,  ii.  140. 


608  INDEX 

■Women  (continued). 
Wages. 

Hindrances  to  maintenance  of  high  wages,  ii.  141,  145. 
Eeduction  of,  resulting  in  prostitution,  ii.  135. 
Wood  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  ii.  217. 

Wordsworth's  Nature  Worship  and  False  Poetic  Sentiment,  i.  40. 
Work.     (See  titles  Collectivism  and  Labour.) 


[^Index  completed  by  Miss  Nancy  Bailey,  5  Great  College  Street, 

Westminster,  London.] 


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